Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: This issue’s first three articles center on the relationship between theatre and geography/space in China in the twentieth century, starting with Fei Su’s “How Culture Was Planned: Shanghai’s Troupe-Relocation Project in the 1950s.” Focusing on the relocation of two yueju (yue opera) troupes from Shanghai to cities in the northwest, a hub of industrial construction during the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s First Five-Year Plan (1953–1957), Su considers such state-mandated relocation part of the “planned culture” that provided both cultural benefit to relocated workers from Shanghai and a solution for the city’s surplus cultural resource. Su methodically documents the fate of the troupe members over three ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: The Xinxin Yueju Tuan (Xinxin Yueju Troupe) is moving from Shanghai to Xi’an today. Xi’an is an ancient city in China. Now, large-scale industrial construction is taking place there. Tens of thousands of workers who participate in the construction from all parts of the country urgently need cultural life. Therefore, the Xinxin Yueju Troupe is moving to Xi’an with the assistance of the Party and government, which is of great significance in meeting the cultural needs of workers in Xi’an and performing the principle of “literature and art for the workers, peasants, and soldiers.”This was a news item from Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily) on 5 January 1956, which reported that Xinxin Yueju Troupe, a medium-sized ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: On 26 May 1919, a tragic incident occurred at a temple in Wenzhou 溫州, a prefecture-level city in China’s Zhejiang 浙江 Province, surrounded by mountains and the East China Sea.1 Living near the temple in the attached county of Wenzhou, Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860–1942), a theatrical enthusiast, witnessed this tumultuous event and documented it in his diary: Ye Lihe 葉禮和 accompanied me to the [Yongjia] Xian Chengdian Jie Xiyuan [永嘉] 縣城殿街戲園 (City God Temple of [Yongjia] County Theatre) this evening to watch a new-type drama performed by a wenming xinju 文明新劇 (civilized drama) troupe [from Shanghai].2 The ticket had already been sold out when we arrived. People were squeezing their way into the temple, so we followed and entered ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: When I was a high school kid, I lived in a neighborhood with a theatre. I never realized there was a lüju theatre in my everyday routine at school until I started to work there.Although my favorite actress Lang has been retired for decades, every time I go to the theatre, I know that I can still see her on the stage because I always search for the similarities and differences between her performances and those of her students.The statements I collected from my conversations with the staff and theatergoing audiences at Baihua Juyuan 百花劇院 (Baihua Theatre) located in Jinan City 濟南 of Shandong Province, hint at how individuals in China today formulate their ideas about xiqu juchang 戲曲劇場 (theatre house of traditional ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Lear, a recent changgeuk adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy staged in Seoul, poses an intriguing question about tradition, interculturality, and cultural identity. The question also bears on the hybrid nature of changgeuk, often known as traditional Korean opera derived from pansori, or a traditional genre of musical storytelling by a single vocalist. Ever since its announcement as part of the 2021–22 repertory season of the National Changgeuk Company of Korea (hereafter NCCK), Lear has been “the most anticipated show of the year” owing to its outstanding creative team (Park Seong-Joon 2022). The creative team of Lear represented the crème de la crème of the Korean theatre industry today, reporter Kim Ho-Jeong ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Produced by the multicultural theatre company Salad in South Korea, Ranui ilgi (Ran’s Diary, written and directed by Park Kyong-ju) premiered in May 2011 at the Box Theater of the Seoul Art Space Mullae—a space for contemporary and experimental arts. In October of the same year, a revised edition of Ran’s Diary was presented at Seoul Byeonbang Yeongeukje (Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival).1 The expanded version at the festival consists of two separate but concurrent performances; Ran’s Diary on the street in central Seoul (Daehakro) and a live on-stage talk with a short one-act play titled Gukje gyeoroneun michin jisida (International Marriage is a Crazy Thing to Do) at a small theatre nearby. Reminding the ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Six dancers—two women, four men—walk across the dimly lit, black-floored stage from different angles, occasionally pausing to look at each other, expressionless.1 Somber, brooding music plays in the background. After a few minutes, two women and two men walk off the stage. The music stops.2In the space of silence, a male dancer in an orange t-shirt and tight-fitting brown knit pants stands stock-still and emotionless, his eyes unfocused. A second dancer, dressed in khaki pants and a vest of olive drab, the color of a military uniform, begins to sculpt the first as if the latter were a statue made of clay. Initially, the sculptor-dancer shapes the “statue” into the wide-legged stance of a Kandyan dancer, an emblem ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: The image of several blackface clowns in sharp red costumes, dancing to exotic music and parading on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, shocked the onlookers on a sunny day in March 2009. To make the matter worse, this jubilant procession that many, rightfully so, perceived as an abhorrent display of racism was officially escorted by the New York City Police Department. The clown, called Hāji Firuz on this occasion, is a traditional stock character from a Persian form of popular entertainment known as siāh-bāzi.2 During the Persian New Year’s festivities (Nowruz), Hāji Firuz walks around the streets, plays his drum, and chants traditional songs addressed to his “master”: All the form’s comic elements are familiar to the ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: With a long history of unapologetically ideologically inflected productions, Coriolanus can readily be considered one of Shakespeare’s most politically charged plays. The first performance on record, Nahum Tate’s The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth or the Fall of Laius Martius Coriolanus, first performed in 1682,1 rewrote the play’s central political conflict along the lines of rivalry between the recently formed Whigs (equated with the plebeians) and Tories (equated with Coriolanus and the Senate) (Brockman 1977: 12). Eighteenth-century adaptations of the play then sought to invoke the spirit of British patriotism and imperialism (Sheldon 1963: 153) while nineteenth-century productions were often inspired by ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: One of the main characteristics of the Sinhala-speaking theatre produced in Sri Lanka after the 1960s is that most of their themes are related to the contemporary political and social situation.1 After independence in 1948, various sectors of the Sri Lankan state administration experienced many crises due to some missteps of local rulers. Thus, the themes of playwrights in the 1960s were the crises of public administration, urban and rural unemployment, and urban economic pressures. According to Michael Fernando, “Some of the young dramatists wanted to portray the burning problems of the contemporary society instead of trying to depict only the universal human problems using the plots taken from traditional ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: The award-winning playwright and director Kamisato Yudai premiered his latest work Imigure Kaidan (Immigrant Ghost Stories) at the end of October 2022 in a small theatre space at the recently opened Naha Cultural Arts Theater NAHArt. I had the privilege to see the premiere and observe the rehearsal process. Like many of Kamisato’s previous works, the piece features prominently themes of crossing borders and migration, multilingualism, history and geography, and life versus death. These themes are inspired both by his personal experiences traveling in South America, Asia, and Japan and by the stories and anecdotes he had heard from others. While Immigrant Ghost Stories might be infused by the same motifs as previous ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: The title of The Challenge of World Theatre History reflects Steve Tillis’s dual approach that grounds his book: the challenge of producing world theatre history and the challenge it offers to our established conventions and understandings. Throughout, Tillis engages with conceptual issues at the center of theatre historiography to argue the urgent need for global inclusivity, making it critical reading for theatre educators. While the implicit emphasis in Tillis’s book is on teaching theatre history, his development of methodologies to produce world theatre history in later chapters may well be applied to the creation of scholarly texts.In its challenge, world theatre history is as much about what has existed as ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology and How to Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion are the two volumes devoted to xiqu in the “How to Read Chinese Literature” series. This ambitious collection will eventually include ten books that cover premodern poetry, fiction, drama, prose, and literary criticism. Each genre gets a guided anthology that aims at presenting cutting-edge scholarship in digestible formats, plus four language companions and an additional book on poetic culture. Though written by Chinese studies specialists and designed primarily for teaching and learning the Chinese language and culture, theatre scholars will find valuable resources in both publications.The anthology ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Susan Blakeley Klein’s Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater makes a compelling argument for attention to the context of the period in which noh plays were written and to the reception practices and strategies that late medieval people might have brought to the work in the fourteenth century. Klein tells us that in the twentieth century, noh was typically appreciated and taught in a universalized, ahistorical mode that ignored or minimized the context of each play’s original performance circumstances, contemporaneous esoteric religious interpretations, and heritage of literary allegories (p. 8). By bringing forward these aspects through reference to the context of production ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments is a volume that positions itself at the intersection of impossibilities. To start, the Ramayana is not a single text but a rich tradition of iterations of a story—a collection so vast that it defies summary, synthesis, or simplification. As Richman notes in her introductory essay, the body of work that we call the Ramayana does not even have a clearly defined beginning or end. To further complicate things, this volume focuses on the Ramayana as it is reimagined—over and over and over—in India’s impossibly extensive catalog of performance styles. After this we must confront one final layer of impossibility. It is one that seems to be ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Ahalya Satkunaratnam’s work Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict explores the dance form of bharata natyam and its practice during the final years of the Sri Lankan civil war. Satkunaratnam examines the ways in which practitioners of the traditional dance form deployed the form to navigate the complex landscape created by the war. The text explores bharata natyam as a site of political and global conflict, and demonstrates the ways in which dance at this time affected and was affected by the war. Furthermore, the book highlights the lived experiences of dancers as it outlines the ways in which personal encounters with global political problems manifest through performance. Ultimately, in the author’s words, “[b]odies ... Read More PubDate: 2024-05-19T00:00:00-05:00
Subscription journal
[305 journals]
