Performing Nations and Cultures: Rethinking Authenticity in the Performing Arts

This project will radically revise notions of authenticity as applied in the performing arts. The aim is to trace and compare the forms, shifts and changes in the notions of authenticity used to frame Indigenous and American Indian peoples' performances in the national contexts of Australia and the USA 1800-1950. The components of this project include a comparative study of the largely unexamined histories of cross-cultural commercial performance by Indigenous and American Indian people in the long nineteenth century. A focus of this study is the interplay between Indigenous/American Indian representations and white representations on public stages and the frames of authenticity these expressed and imposed.