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In sub-Saharan Africa a number of national theatres were established from the 1950s onwards. Their construction involved British colonial administration, American philanthropy and Chinese development aid. While each history is particular, they share certain common experiences that can be read as an allegory of postcolonial history. This narrative is bracketed by the seemingly contradictory terms modular modernity and cultural heritage: modernity with its promise of the new, cultural heritage with its ideology of preservation. While apparently oppositional terms, they are in fact two points on a continuum of Western and Asian influence on the African continent. There is a direct through-line connecting modular modernity with cultural heritage discourse of the post-Cold War period. This chapter’s main example is the National Theatre in Uganda which can read as a test case of shifting discourses and agendas in the context of the Cultural Cold War and its long-term implications.

The introduction outlines the main trajectories of the Cultural Cold War, starting with the revelations in the late 1960s that the CIA was using various front organizations to fund culture abroad as a way to combat Soviet influence. It adds to the familiar narrative by showing that the Cultural Cold War needs to be re-evaluated on the one hand by focusing on US philanthropy in the postcolonial world. On the other hand there is a need to examine Soviet and East European initiatives in the newly independent nations from the perspective of cultural diplomacy and soft power. The activities on both sides of the Iron Curtain testify to the recognition on the part of US policy makers that the emerging postcolonial world needed substantial investment in cultural infrastructure if it was to resist the blandishments of socialism, to which many of its leaders were ideologically attracted, if not aligned. The final section outlines the four sections that structure the volume: Networks and Institutions; Cultural Diplomacy; Artists and Agency; and Cultures of Things.

Drawing on new research from the ERC project ‘Developing Theatre’, this collection presents innovative institutional approaches to the theatre historiography of the Global South since 1945. Covering perspectives from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the chapters explore how US philanthropy, international organisations and pan-African festivals all contributed to the globalisation and institutionalisation of the performing arts in the Global South. During the Cultural Cold War, the Global North intervened in and promoted forms of cultural infrastructure that were deemed adaptable to any environment. This form of technopolitics impacted the construction of national theatres, the introduction of new pedagogical tools and the invention of the workshop as a format. The networks of 'experts; responsible for this foreground seminal figures, both celebrated (Augusto Boal, Efua Sutherland) but also lesser known (Albert Botbol, Severino Montano, Metin And), who contributed to the worldwide theatrical epistemic community of the postwar years. Developing Theatre in the Global South investigates the institutional factors that led to the emergence of professional theatre in the postwar period throughout the decolonising world. The book’s institutional and transnational approach enables theatre studies to overcome its still strong national and local focus on plays and productions, and connect it to current discourses in transnational and global history.

Cultural Cold War, decolonization, postcolonial studies, cultural diplomacy, national theatre