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In Corporeal Politics, leading international scholars investigate the development of dance as a deeply meaningful and complex cultural practice across time, placing special focus on the intertwining of East Asia dance and politics and the role of dance as a medium of transcultural interaction and communication across borders. Countering common narratives of dance history that emphasize the US and Europe as centers of origin and innovation, the expansive creativity of dance artists in East Asia asserts its importance as a site of critical theorization and reflection on global artistic developments in the performing arts. Through the lens of “corporeal politics”—the close attention to bo...
Describes the formation of the Peking opera in late Qing and its subsequent rise and re-creation as the epitome of the Chinese national culture in Republican era China. This book looks into the lives of some of the opera's key actors, and explores their methods for earning a living, and their status in an ever-changing society.
This volume is the first concise introduction to the splendid variety of the Chinese theatrical tradition. It presents a rounded perspective on the development of Chinese theater by considering all of its major aspects—history and social context, performance, costume, makeup, actors, playwrights, and theaters—and by discussing all the major forms of Chinese theater, including the Beijing opera, which arose in the eighteenth century, and the spoken play, an entirely twentieth-century form. Its contributors are uniquely qualified to write about the Chinese theater. They have enjoyed an intimate relationship with their subject, both as academics and as theater workers, and they have combined a deep knowledge of Chinese theater with a high regard for its long tradition and continuing vitality. The book is intended for general as well as more specialized readers. Those with an interest in theater as a worldwide phenomenon and those wanting a new light on Chinese culture and society will find it equally useful. To those with a particular interest in Chinese theater, it will be a rich and important resource.
This work gives an 'inside' view of Chinese theatre and the actor in performance for the first time. It challenges western theatre artists such as Brecht, Grotowski, Barba and Schechner, who have extracted from Chinese theatre elements which might enrich their own theatres. It is based on personal observations of and dialogue with Chinese actors, experiences which were impossible before 1980. Riley's study is well illustrated with photographs and diagrams and is accessible to anyone interested in theatre, even those with no knowledge of Chinese or Chinese theatre.
Eastwards is a collection of essays each of whom focuses on a special aspect or on an episode within the cross-cultural narrative that imposes on our minds the terms "West" and "East". The volume assembles seventeen essays by eighteen authors divided into three chapters. Being the outcome of the first international conference for East Asian studies that was held in the Baltic states in 2008 at the University of Latvia in Riga, the volume contains not only contributions by scholars from Vilnius, Tallinn and Riga but also rather rare topics like critiques of translation from Japanese and Classical Chinese into Latvian. The book contains also an essay on the life and personality of an almost neglected Baltic "pioneer" in Manchuria
This powerful and meticulously researched study explores the role of rural industry and entrepreneurship in the Chinese economic miracle. Linda Grove considers especially the development of the Gaoyang industrial district, China's best-known rural industrial district of the pre–World War II period. By focusing on one weaving district in North China, she is able to explore in detail the ways in which small industrial firms have accumulated capital, organized their firms, developed nationwide marketing networks, and promoted brands over the last century. Cutting across the conventional divide between studies of "history" and "contemporary economy" and between pre- and post-1949 China, the au...
In late imperial China, opera transmitted ideas across the social hierarchy about the self, family, society, and politics. Beijing attracted a diverse array of opera genres and audiences and, by extension, served as a hub for the diffusion of cultural values. It is in this context that historian Andrea S. Goldman harnesses opera as a lens through which to examine urban cultural history. Her meticulous yet playful account takes up the multiplicity of opera types that proliferated at the time, exploring them as contested sites through which the Qing court and commercial playhouses negotiated influence and control over the social and moral order. Opera performance blurred lines between public and private life, and offered a stage on which to act out gender and class transgressions. This work illuminates how the state and various urban constituencies manipulated opera to their own ends, and sheds light on empire-wide transformations underway at the time.
There is a sense of timelessness in the Chinese theater: ever since its maturation, its format has not changed in any significant way. Chinese Theater matured into its final format in the 13th century and flourished during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. It is a unique, exclusive, and self-sufficient system, whose evolution has received little influence from the West and whose influence on Western theaters has been minimal and often misinterpreted. It is essentially a performer's theater; the actors attract the audience with splendid performances perfected through many years of rigorous training. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Chinese Theater contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,500 cross-referenced entries on performers, directors, producers, designers, actors, theaters, dynasties, and emperors. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Chinese theater.
What was the most influential mass medium in China before the internet? Jingju (Peking opera)! Although its actors were commonly thought to have been illiterate, written and other inscripted versions of plays became more and more important and varied. This book shows how increasing textualization and the resulting fixation of a performance tradition that once privileged improvisation changed the genre. It traces, from Jingju’s birth in the 19th century to the present, how texts were used for the production and consumption of this important performance genre and the changes in the concepts of authorship, copyright, and performance rights that took place during the process. The state’s desire to police what was performed is shown to have been a major factor in these changes. The scope and coverage of the book is already unprecedented, but it is also supplemented by an additional chapter (on where the plays were performed, who performed them, and who went to see them) available for download online.
Intercultural theater is a prominent phenomena of twentieth-century international theater. This books views intercultural theatre as a process of displacement and re-placement of various cultural and theatrical forces, a process which the author describes as 'the poetics of displacement'.