A hybridity continuum : the case of the performer’s bodyworlds

Abstract

‘Hybridity’ is a loaded term, rich with meanings and implications that, as the call for this issue of Performance Research outlined, features in areas as diverse as agriculture, animal husbandry, metallurgy and chemistry, as well as racialized and identity discourses, interculturalism and, more recently, technologization. At its simplest level, hybridity refers to the coming together of different elements or species that produce a distinct other. Hence, for example, Homi Bhabha’s (1994) reading that marks a third space between cultures, particularly in colonial and postcolonial contexts. This article attempts not so much to define hybridity as propose a framework for its critical appreciation from the angle of performance, specifically from the viewpoint of the experience of performers and other somatic practitioners like athletes.