Chinese drama--East Asia, Theater--China--History--21st century, and Theater--China
Abstract
This is the first systematic study of networks of performance collaboration in the contemporary Chinese-speaking world and of their interactions with the artistic communities of the wider East Asian region. It investigates the aesthetics and politics of collaboration to propose a new transnational model for the analysis of Sinophone theatre cultures and to foreground the mobility and relationality of intercultural performance in East Asia. The research draws on extensive fieldwork, interviews with practitioners, and direct observation of performances, rehearsals, and festivals in Asia and Europe. It offers provocative close readings and discourse analysis of an extensive corpus of hitherto untapped sources, including unreleased video materials and unpublished scripts, production notes, and archival documentation.
Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, Shih-pe Wang, Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang
Subjects
Chinese drama--Ming dynasty, 1368-1644--History and criticism, English drama--17th century--History and criticism, and Theater--China--History
Abstract
The year is 1616. William Shakespeare has just died and the world of the London theatres is mourning his loss. 1616 also saw the death of the famous Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu. Four hundred years on and Shakespeare is now an important meeting place for Anglo-Chinese cultural dialogue in the field of drama studies. In June 2014 (the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth), SOAS, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the National Chung Cheng University of Taiwan gathered 20 scholars together to reflect on the theatrical practice of four hundred years ago and to ask: what does such an exploration mean culturally for us today? This ground-breaking study offers fresh insights into the respective theatrical worlds of Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu and asks how the brave new theatres of 1616 may have a vital role to play in the intercultural dialogue of our own time.
Jörg Huber, Zhao Chuan, Jörg Huber, and Zhao Chuan
Subjects
Body art--China, Theater--China--History--21st century, Arts, Chinese--21st century, and Human figure in art
Abstract
This publication enquires into the role and treatment of the body in the visual culture of contemporary China. What meanings are assigned to the body in artistic practice, what does it represent and what (hi)stories does it refer to? Considerable importance is ascribed to the body as a means of orientation and placement; as an arena and medium of social experience. 19 Chinese artists, theatre practitioners and theorists describe their personal experiences, put their thoughts and views up for discussion and explore how art can shed light on the individual and collective experiences that emerge in the wake of historical change and the anticipation of a newly won freedom.
Dramatists, Chinese, Theater--China--History, Chinese drama--Ming dynasty, 1368-1644--History and criticism, and Chinese drama--Qing dynasty, 1644-1912--History and criticism
Abstract
Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren is a full-length study of chuanqi (romance) drama, a sophisticated form with substantial literary and meta-theatrical value that reigned in Chinese theater from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and nourished later theatrical traditions including jingju (Beijing Opera). Highly educated dramatists used chuanqi to present in artistic form personal, social, and political concerns of their time. There were six outstanding examples of these trends, considered masterpieces in their time and ever since. This study presents them in their social and cultural context during the long seventeenth century (1580D1700), the period of great experimentation and political transition. The romantic spirit and independent thinking of the late Ming elite stimulated the efflorescence of the chuanqi, and that legacy was inherited and investigated during the second half of the seventeenth-century in early Qing. Jing Shen examinees the texts to demonstrate that the playwrights appropriate, convert, or misinterpret other genres or literary works of enduring influence into their plays to convey subtle and subversive expressions in the fine margins between tradition and innovation, history and theatrical re-presentation. By exploring the components of romance in texts from late Ming to early Qing, Shen reveals creative readings of earlier themes, stories, plays and the changing idea of romanticism for chuanqi drama. This study also shows the engagement of literati playwrights in closed literary circles in which chuanqi plays became a tool by which literati playwrights negotiated their agency and social stature. The five playwrights whose works are analyzed in this book had different experiences pursuing government service as scholar-officials; some failed to achieve high office. But their common concerns and self-conscious literary choices reveal important insights into the culture of the seventeenth century, and into the sociopolitical implications of the chuanqi genre. In addition to classical Chinese commentaries on chuanqi drama, this book uses modern critical theories and terminology on Western drama to enhance the analysis of chuanqi plays.
Chinese drama--History and criticism, Operas, Chinese--History and criticism, and Theater--China--History
Abstract
Bereits zur Mongolenzeit, als das Theater als Kunstform in Europa noch nicht wiederentdeckt worden war, erlebte es in China eine Blütezeit. Der Band vermittelt einen historischen Überblick, fragtnach dem Ursprung der chinesischen Bühne aus der Religionund verfolgt die Rezeption der chinesischen Theaterkunst im Abendland.
Theater--China--History, Chinese drama--English influences, and Performing arts--China--History
Abstract
For close to two hundred years, the ideas of Shakespeare have inspired incredible work in the literature, fiction, theater, and cinema of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. From the novels of Lao She and Lin Shu to Lu Xun's search for a Chinese'Shakespeare,'and from Feng Xiaogang's martial arts films to labor camp memoirs, Soviet-Chinese theater, Chinese opera in Europe, and silent film, Shakespeare has been put to work in unexpected places, yielding a rich trove of transnational imagery and paradoxical citations in popular and political culture. Chinese Shakespeares is the first book to concentrate on both Shakespearean performance and Shakespeare's appearance in Sinophone culture and their ambiguous relationship to the postcolonial question. Substantiated by case studies of major cultural events and texts from the first Opium War in 1839 to our times, Chinese Shakespeares theorizes competing visions of'China'and'Shakespeare'in the global cultural marketplace and challenges the logic of fidelity-based criticism and the myth of cultural exclusivity. In her critique of the locality and ideological investments of authenticity in nationalism, modernity, Marxism, and personal identities, Huang reveals the truly transformative power of Chinese Shakespeares.
Drama--20th century--History and criticism, Civilization, Western--Chinese influences, Chinese drama--20th century--History and criticism, Theater--Western countries--History--20th century, Theater--China--History--20th century, and Intercultural communication
Theater -- China -- History -- 20th century., Amateur theater -- China -- History -- 20th century., Theater -- Political aspects -- China -- History -- 20th century., Theater and society -- China., and History.
Abstract
"Charting their training, travels, and performances, this innovative study explores the role of the artists that roamed the Chinese countryside in support of Mao's communist revolution. DeMare traces the development of Mao's 'cultural army' from its genesis in Red Army propaganda teams to its full development as a largely civilian force composed of amateur and professional drama troupes in the early years of the PRC. Drawing from memoirs, artistic handbooks, and rare archival sources, Mao's Cultural Army uncovers the arduous and complex process of creating revolutionary dramas that would appeal to China's all-important rural audiences. The Communists strived for a disciplined cultural army to promote party policies, but audiences often shunned modern and didactic shows, and instead clamoured for traditional works. DeMare illustrates how drama troupes, caught between the party and their audiences, did their best to resist the ever growing reach of the PRC state"--
Theater -- China -- History -- 20th century., Theater -- China -- History -- 21st century., Chinese drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism., Chinese drama -- 21st century -- History and criticism., Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- China -- History -- 20th century., and Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- China -- History -- 21st century.
Theatre occupied a particularly important place in the life of the elite, for whom owning a theatre troupe was highly fashionable and for whom theatre performances were an integral part of formal gatherings, various rituals and ceremonies. Based on an exploration of original historical records, including comparisons with other forms of ancient theatre, Shen provides an overview of elite theatre in Ming China and examines the details of theatrical performance.
Theater -- China -- History -- 19th century., Theater -- China -- History -- 20th century., Operas, Chinese -- History -- 19th century., and Operas, Chinese -- History -- 20th century.
Aida, Fusako, 1955- author. and Aida, Fusako, 1955- author.
Subjects
Theater -- China -- History -- 19th century., Theater -- China -- History -- 20th century., Chinese drama -- 19th century -- History and criticism., and Chinese drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
Theater -- China -- History -- 21st century., Theater -- China -- Hong Kong -- History -- 21st century., Theater -- Taiwan -- History -- 21st century., LITERARY CRITICISM -- Asian -- Chinese., PERFORMING ARTS -- General., PERFORMING ARTS -- Theater -- General., PERFORMING ARTS -- Theater -- Direction & Production., PERFORMING ARTS -- Theater -- History & Criticism., Theater., and History.
Abstract
"Accounts of theatre practitioners and their artistic and ideological decisions within a complex, fast-changing socio-economic, cultural and political environment illustrate how mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are reflected by and even constructed through theatre. The eleven chapters of the book, divided into four parts, explore a wide range of topics: how classical works are approached since the millennium; what the new propaganda theatre looks like; how theatre practitioners respond to the great challenges facing the arts sector in a fast-changing society; and how independent theatres contribute to the cultural landscape. The vivid narrative of today's theatre brings out the "ghosts"--Various controversial subjects-of more than a century demonstrating how "spoken drama" has grown from an imported Western genre into a modern theatre deeply rooted in the Chinese soil"--
Shakespeare in China provides English language readers with a comprehensive sense of China's past and on-going encounter with Shakespeare. It offers a detailed history of twentieth-century Sino-Shakespeare from the beginnings to 1949, followed by more recent accounts of the playwright in the People's Republic, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The study pays particular attention to translation, criticism and theatrical productions and highlights Shakespeare's fate during the turbulent political times of modern China. Chapters on'Shakespeare and Confucius'and'The Paradox of Shakespeare in the New China'consider the playwright in the context of'old'and'new'Chinese ideologies. Bringing together hard to find materials in both English and Chinese, it builds upon and extends past research on its subject.
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