ABSTRACT
Living history is both a movement and a practice that seeks to simulate how lives were lived in the past by reenacting them in the present. The impulse to embody the past in the present through performance, re-storying the past through poetry, prose, drama, dance, music, or ritual, is a shared human experience, found in all cultures and at all times. Seeking to reenact past lives by practicing everyday activities, using first-person interaction with visitors, living history is a self-conscious attempt to represent past lives as they were actually lived. The degree to which such living history performers have the freedom to deviate from scripts and training manuals varies. Researchers who have conducted interviews with reenactors at living history sites, or who have participated in reenactments themselves, have observed that the pursuit of historical accuracy varies. Historical distance is experienced differently in another performance strategy adopted by living history sites: third-person interpretation.
