1 Theatre and Cosmopolitanism: Towards and Against Ontology Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco Theatre Studies Programme / Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts National University of Singapore / University of the Philippines (Paper presentation, International Federation for Theatre Research 2013 Annual Conference, Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, Spain, 22 – 26 July 2013) Cosmopolitanism has become a catchphrase in discussions of contemporary scenarios such as migration, transnational politics, and world security. Also, it has become a new conceptual frame to critique current articulations of globalization. Originally a social scientific concept, the arts and the humanities are now engaging in conversations about it and gave birth to new conceptual frames such as “hospitality of the arts,” “cosmopolitan imagination,” “aesthetic cosmopolitanism,” “aesthetics of openness” to name a few. 1 This essay is a continuation of such conversation using theatre as springboard. Generally, cosmopolitanism seeks to address what it means when the art form is combined with the complexity of the term. Many theatre studies experts have theorized this relationship in the past decade. Often, most theorizations invoke three conceptual tools that speak of the “cosmopolitanization” of theatre: multiculturalism, international audiences and cross-cultural collaborations. 2 It will be argued that if the relationship of theatre and cosmopolitanism is locked within this tripartite domain, then theatre experiences outside the developed world are not included in implicating cosmopolitanism in the theatre. In this regard, I will look at the theatre of Manila in the Philippines as a possible site for a cosmopolitan engagement. I will 1 Recent studies on the relationship of cosmopolitanism and the humanities include discussions on conceptual and installation art by Marsha Meskimmon (2011) and Nikos Papastergiadis (2012); philosophy, history and cultural studies by Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006), Mica Nava (2007) and C.J. Wan Ling Wee (2007); literature and hermeneutics by Robert Spencer (2011); rock and popular music by Reegev Motti (20113); performance, politics and globalization by Paul Rae (2005), Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo (2007) and Dan Rebellato (2009). 2 The most recent and most cited research on theatre and cosmopolitanism is Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo’s (2007) Performance and Cosmopolitics: Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia. In this study, Gilbert and Lo asserts cosmopolitanism as a theoretical position of postcolonialism implicated in multiculturalism, internationalism and cross-cultural transactions.