This article examines the integration of chuānyuè (time travel), a narrative trope popularized by Chinese Web literature—particularly on platforms like Jinjiang—into more traditional literary and artistic forms. While scholarship on chuānyuè has predominantly focused on its role in reflecting contemporary societal dynamics, little attention has been paid to its adoption into works that transcend linguistic, cultural, and geographical boundaries. This study addresses this gap by analyzing Shan Sa’s Les Quatre Vies du Saule (1999) and the ballet Dūnhuáng (2017), both of which employ chuānyuè to blur boundaries between genres, time periods, and geographies, creating what Bhabha terms "third-space" and Glissant calls "chaos-monde."

In Les Quatre Vies du Saule, chuānyuè intertwines fantastical transformations with historical and cultural narratives, as a willow branch-turned-woman journeys across centuries in pursuit of love and self-discovery. Similarly, Dūnhuáng reimagines the trope through a mystical quest inspired by the Mogao cave frescoes, bridging ancient artistic traditions with contemporary dance performance. These works not only reinterpret chuānyuè but also reverse the conventional trajectory of cultural exchange—typically West to East—by projecting Chinese cultural forms into Western frameworks such as the French novel and classical ballet.

This paper argues that through the trope of chuānyuè, these works disrupt established hierarchies of genre, geography, and temporality. They allow disparate cultures and temporalities to merge while preserving their inherent tensions, fostering a dynamic space for cultural dialogue and exchange. This synthesis reflects a broader theoretical framework, where chuānyuè serves as a vehicle for articulating the “chaotic” interplay of global cultures, neither erasing differences nor subordinating one tradition to another.

German dramatist Bertolt Brecht's dramatic theory, characterized by its cross-cultural and critical nature, fundamentally transformed 20th-century dramatic aesthetics. This paper employs a comparative literature perspective to elucidate the genesis, dissemination, and transformation of Brecht's dramatic views. First, Brecht challenged Aristotle's empathy-based system by introducing "epic theater" and the "alienation effect," thereby exposing theatrical conventions and undermining illusionism. His reinterpretation of Chinese opera's stylized performance laid the groundwork for reconstructing Western dramatic traditions. Second, from a historical perspective, Brecht dialectically engaged with the Enlightenment tradition, responding to Diderot's notion of "rational control of actors" while critiquing Stanislavski's acting system to redefine the relationship between spectatorship and performance. Additionally, his dialogue with Artaud's Theater of Cruelty further highlights the tension between rational enlightenment and sensory revolution in modernist drama. Finally, this paper examines the proliferation of Brecht's theories in the digital age, where interactive theater in the era of social media has engendered new forms of alienation, thus activating art's potential to intervene in society within the context of globalization. The comparative literature approach not only deconstructs the binary opposition between traditional Eastern and Western drama but also reveals the productive misreadings that occur during theoretical migration, offering a novel framework for reevaluating the relationship between drama and ideology.

My paper focuses on Indigenous Canadian and Greenlandic performances: Émilie Monnet’s Okinum (2018) and Din historie er også min / Oqaluttuaatigut (2023) produced by Teater freeze Production & Naleraq Lights.

First of all, Okinum, the interdisciplinary and immersive performance of Anishnaabe/Algonquin /Francophone artist Émilie Monnet, echoes the cultural and political realities experienced by First Nations in Canada. The multilingual performance (English, French and Anishnaabemowin) revolves around the oneiric metamorphosis with the mythical figure of the beaver which helps the protagonist heal, reclaim her language and embrace her identity. Following the same themes, the multilingual Din historie er også min / Oqaluttuaatigut performed by Josef Tarrak and Else Danielsen draws on the traumatic past of colonized Greenland and follows an intergenerational dialogue fuelled by dreams and a constant search for identity.

By putting these artists in dialogue, I aim to analyse the artists’ non-anthropocentric approach which focuses on the re-interpretation of a traumatic collective experience of human violence through the perspective of the more-than-human. Moving beyond anthropocentrism, the performances highlight the poetic, political and ontological importance of more-than-human elements in Indigenous theatre. Staging humanimality (V. Greene) and focusing on nature is a strategy that allows a mediation of care towards the oppressed and enables alternative ecologies of response-ability (D. Haraway) and care. Exploring profound issues revolving around memory, colonialism and identity reclamation, these two performances are deeply rooted in care ethics, reflecting their attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness (J. Tronto). Furthermore, the artists rethink this concept and develop an “ethic of kinship” (K. Nelson) fuelled by an Indigenous understanding of otherness. In addition, the performative genre of this work implies a complex range of technological approaches through embodiment, visual and aural devices.

Drawing on ecocritical, post-humanist and feminist perspectives, my paper seeks to explore Indigenous Canadian and Greenlandic performances as they illustrate identity exploration, empowerment and kinship with the more-than-human. By analysing these performances as a case study and bringing together cultural, animal and performance studies, my paper argues that staging of the more-than-human challenges the existing framework of care ethics and enables theatre to become a genuine space of empowerment, dialogue and allyship.

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