Download Week 5 Powerpoint File

Culture and Performance:
POSTDRAMATIC TRANSNATIONALISM
AND CHINA
DR53033A
Lecture 5
26/10/2015
Dr Mary Mazzilli
[email protected]
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=UropN9mfE
Rc
We will cover:
• Definitions: -cultural theatre; Min Tian
and Orientalism
• Transnationalism
• Postdramatic theatre
• Gao Xingjian
• Between Life and Death
• Potential comparison with Martin Crimp
• Questions
Different definitions of
theatre/culture
•
•
•
•
Cross-cultural
Transcultural
Multicultural
Intercultural
Different definitions of
theatre/culture
• Cross-cultural - brought together for
cross-referencing
• Transcultural - transcends particular
cultures, seeks common grounds/elements
that can not be pinned to any specific
culture
• Multi-cultural - co-existing in one
location or space
• Intercultural - hybridization or
syncretism
Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978)
• Through Orientalism the West constructed
an image of the East by and for the West.
• Orientalism is not representative of the
Orient but rather a representation of it.
• Knowledge of the Orient is produced and
reproduced such that it comes to be
thought of as actual fact.
• Effect of colonialism.
Min Tian and displacement
• Contemporary Chinese theatre: the
displacements of Stanislavsky, Brecht, and
Meyerhold involve a re-placement of the Self
(traditional Chinese theatre).
• Displacements are not a one-way affair
• Inter-displacement of both the Other and the
Self: adaptations of Shakespeare and Greek
tragedy in traditional Chinese and other
Asian theatrical forms (Min Tian, 11).
Contemporary examples:
Shakespeare in China
Neo-Orientalization
• Neo-Orientalization of the "Oriental
theatre" undertaken by the Orient through
self-Orientalization.
• ‘The Chinese anti-realist and antiillusionist interpretation and practice of
China's traditional theatre affected by
Brecht's and Meyerhold’s interpretations
is a primary example of this selfOrientalization.’ (Min Tian, 12)
Main traits of Chinese Traditional
Theatre
• Total theatre (acrobats; singing; and spoken
words): importance of spectacle
• Stylization: rules of the game
• Stock characters (Commedia dell’Arte)
• Story-telling and narrative (literature and
drama)
• Character/performer: ‘taking over the spirit
not merely copying the form’ (Mei Lanfang)
• Xieyi (freehand style painting): abstraction
and exaggerated gestus
Chinese modern and contemporary
theatre
• Realism and Modernism in 1920s - 40s (Cao Yu, Tian
Han, Lao She etc.): project of national identity –
Stanislavsky
• Maoist period (40s-60s): Socialist Realism and
political theatre
• Cultural revolution (1966-76): model Chinese plays
• 1980s- avant-garde theatre and experimental theatre
with Huang Zuoling (Brecht, Mei Lanfang and
Stanislavsky) Lin Zhaohua and Gao Xingjian
• 1990s – Meng Jinhui ‘Pop goes avant-garde’ (Rosella
Ferrari); postmodern theatre with Hong Kong-based
company Zuni Icosahedron among many others.
Displacement
• Intercultural theatre as a site of
displacement
• Dichotomy: Chinese and Western theatre
as two monolithic entities
• Questions: what is Western theatre? What
is non-western theatre in the era of
Globalization?
• Origin and ownership
• Performance as site of ideology of culture
Postdramatic
and
Transnationalism
Transnationalism and migration
Culture from
Country of origin
migration
In country of
destination
imaginary of
country of origin
Transnationalism
• Transnationalism and diaspora
• ‘Transnationalism is about transcending
geographical, social and economic
boundaries and the political and cultural
barriers and boundary-making processes’
(Ato Quayson and Girish Daswani in M.
Mazzilli, 8).
Postdramatic Theatre
Hans-Thies Lehmann - 1999 German book Postdramatisches Theater
• Anti-representational and non-linearity (postepic narration);
theatre of the real/physical theatre (Forced Entertainment;
Wooster Group)
• Use of monologies (Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, Martin
Crimp)
• Theatre of spectatorship and emphasis on performativity
• Process of musicalization (Robert Wilson; Heiner Goebbels)
• Blur of boundaries between dance, physical theatre and
performance art (Marina Abramović, Orlan etc)
• 1970s in Central Europe/North-America; now examples an be
found in Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.
• Decentered discourse; no dominant ideology; antiideology.
Postdramatic Transnationalism
“The word ‘postdramatic’ as a suffix to
transnationalism, describes a type of
transnationalism that is postdramatic in
nature, fluid and open, but also that has,
above all, moved forward from its ‘dramatic’
peak” (M. Mazzilli, 7).
Gao Xingjian
Playwright, director, novelist and
painter.
Born in Ganzhou, Jianxi province in
1940.
Forefront of post-Cultural revolution
theatre, absurdist and avant-garde
theatre (Bus stop, Absolut signal,
Wild Man); resident playwright at
the Beijing People's Art Theatre
from 1981 to 1987.
After The other shore (1987) was banned, he moved to France and became
French citizen and never returned to China. He was made Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres in 1992 He published Soul Mountain in 1989.
2000 Nobel Prize for Literature among controversy.
Among post-exile plays: Escape (1989); Between Life and Death (1991); Dialogue
and Rebuttal (1992); Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), Weekend Quartet (1995),
Snow in August (1997), Death Collector (2000) and Ballade Nocturne (2010).
Big question: national and cultural
identity
Is Gao Xingjian
• French
• Chinese
• European?
• What about his theatre?
Gao Xingjian and ‘cold theatre’
• Gao’s Nobel Prize speech:
 ‘cold literature’ as one ‘that will escape for its own
survival’ and that does not ‘let itself be strangled by
society’ (Gao 2008: 7–8);
 One that transcends national boundaries.
• Embraces European avant-garde and modernist theatre
(Ionesco, Genet, Becket etc.) and theatre-makers
(Grotowski, Meyerhold and Brook)
• Return to Xiqu, Peking opera.
• Zen Modern Theatre
• ‘Xieyi theatre’
Gao’s post-exile theatre
• Gao’s idea of jiadingxing: suppositional,
hypothetical reality is expressed through
the performers/role/spectator relationship
• the creation of hallucination not
representation of reality
• use of different person pronouns (‘she’;
‘you’)
• Neutral actor and The Death of character
• Total theatre
Between Life and Death
• First staged at the Théâtre RenaudBarrault in Paris in 1993.
• Woman’s (la femme in French and nü ren
in Chinese) unconscious trip through her
present and past, and between life and
death.
• Use of ‘she’ instead of ‘I’.
Between Life and Death
• First part: General sense of guilt and search
for consolation and a resolution to her misery
• Second part: After interacting with Man,
Woman finds that one of her legs has been
amputated.
• Third part: physical, bodily
dismembering/bodily violence and internal
turmoil and despair - a nun (nü ni, bonzesse
or Buddhist Nun)
Gao Xingjian and Martin Crimp
• Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life
(1997)
• Female character absent on stage
• Deconstructed femininity
• Use of monologies
• Hallucination on stage
Postdramatic transnationalism
• The death of character as a psychological
entity (Elinor Fuchs) through tripartition
• Theatre of presence: performance art
• Use of monologies
• Silent side characters point to a nostalgic
Chineseness and a process of selfOrientalisation
• Cultural Transcendence in a fluid
theatrical discourse
Transnational
nature of postdramatic theatre
• A process of inter-displacement and
replacement, through the borrowing of
theatrical practices of theatremakers, like
Brecht and Meyerhold, Asian theatre has
influenced Western contemporary theatre
• Postdramatic theatre as an evolution of
modernist practices product of
connections to non-Western practices. (M.
Mazzilli, 16)
Transnationalism in China and
Globalization
Questions
• What is transnational theatre? Is it only related to
diaspora and migration?
• How do we read/interpret theatrical practices in face
of issues related to national identity?
• What about issues related to race/ethnicity?
• How do we assess the effect of globlalisation on
theatrical practices across the Globe?
• Can we define cultural practices by their origin? Do we
equate national origin/cultural roots with cultural
ownership? Maria Shevtsova– ‘purity of culture’
• Does hybridity exist? Or is it another form of cultural
ideology?
Additional Readings
Fuchs, E. (1996), The Death of Character,
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Said, Edward. (1978), Orientalism, New
York: Random House.