Performing Asia on the Global Stage

Week 1  Introduction and Overview

• Introduction of the concept of ethnic identity and theatre and performance.
• Prompts: What do you think of when you think of “Asian Theatre and Performance”? Why do you choose this course? What are your interests in the performance of Asian identity?

Week 2  Glimpses of the Orient

• Madama Butterfly: What makes it such a powerful opera? (The Royal Opera): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v04ezmJi_iw
• Show Clips – M. BUTTERFLY, Starring Clive Owen and Jin Ha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh5nSdqeVY4
• BUTTERFLY; René Gallimard & Song Lili’s first encounter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-0LOQDGABo
• Wisenthal, Jonathan. 2006. “Inventing the Orient.” A Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts of Madame Butterfly, edited by Jonathan Wisenthal et al., University of Toronto Press, 3–18.

Week 3  Performing Feminine Asia for A Western Audience

• “I’d Give My Life for You” by Eva Noblezada — Miss Saigon, Tonys 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7gz7PlFHk8
• Tator, Carol, et al. 1998. “Miss Saigon.” Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and Conflict, University of Toronto Press, 141–58.
• Shimizu, Celine Parreñas. 2005. The Bind of Representation: Performing and Consuming Hypersexuality in “Miss Saigon.” Theatre Journal (Washington, D.C.), 57 (2), 247–265. 
• Staszak, Jean-François. 2015. “Performing race and gender: the exoticization of Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong.” Gender, Place & Culture. 22 (5): 626-643.

Week 4  Rejuvenating Western Theatre with the East

• Artaud, Antonin. 1976 (1931). “On the Balinese Theater”. Salmagundi 33/34,103-114.
• Brecht, Bertolt. “On Chinese Acting,” in Martin, Carol, and Henry Bial. 2005. Brecht Sourcebook. Hoboken: Routledge, 13-20.
• Kato, Eileen. 2010. “W.B. Yeats and the Noh”. The Irish Review 42, 104-119. 

Week 5  Intercultural Theatre: What is it?

• Lo, Jacqueline, and Helen Gilbert. 2002. “Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis.” The Drama Review. 46 (3), 31-53.
• From Fischer-Lichte, Erika, Torsten Jost, and Saskya Iris Jain, eds. 2014. “Introduction.” The Politics of Interweaving Performance Cultures: Beyond Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge.

Week 6  The Multitudes of Interculturalism

• Peter Brook’s Mahabharata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqkRGISQr8
• Pavis, Patrice. 1992. Chapter 8 “Interculturalism In Contemporary Mise En Scène: The Image of India In The Mahabharata, The Indiade, Twelfth Night And Faust.” Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, 178-209.
• Bharucha, Rustom. 1993. “Chapter 4. Peter Brook’s Mahabharata: a View from India.” Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture, 69-87.

Week 7  Asianizing the Western Cannon: Asian Shakespeare

• Lear, by Ong Kang Sen: http://a-s-i-a-web.org (Productions— Lear—The Japan Foundation—Director: Ong Kang Sen—1997)
• Yong, Li Lan. 2010. “Shakespeare Here and Elsewhere: Ong Keng Sen’s Intercultural Shakespeare.” Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance, 188-215.

Week 8  Synthesizing Asian Identity in Contemporary Intercultural Theatre

• Liu, Siyuan. “Jade in the Coal and the Performance of Theatrical Interculturalism.” In Asian Canadian 5 Theatre – New Essays on Canadian Theatre Vol. 1, edited by Nina Lee Aquino and Ric Knowles, 195-207. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2011. 
• Phillip B. Zarrilli, 2007. “For whom is the King a King? Issues of Intercultural Production, Perception, and Reception in a Kathakali King Lear.” Critical Theory and Performance, 108-33.

Week 9  Assignment Workshop 1: Present on An Asian Intercultural Theatre Work/Troupe

Each group of student presents (for 15min) on an Asian intercultural theatre work/troupe with the focus on the analysis of the intercultural elements: what strategy are they using to present/represent Asia on the global stage? Do they correspond with any models we covered in our class so far? Are they problematic – if so, in what way?

Week 10  Diaspora Studies: What is It?

• William Safran, 1991. “Diasporas in Modern Societies.” Diaspora 1 (1), 83-99. 
• James Clifford, 1994. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9 (3), 302-344.
• Chuh , Kandice, and Karen Shimakawa. 2001. “Introduction: Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora.” Orientations : mapping studies in the Asian diaspora. Duke University Press.

Week 11  Performing Asia in Diaspora

• Lee, Hyunjung. 2016. “An Eternal Parting: Staging Internal Diaspora, Performing South Korean Nationalism.” Theatre Research International, 41(3), 231–244.
• Liu, April. 2019. “The Politics of Memory and Migration.” Divine Threads: The Visual and Material Culture of Cantonese Opera. 
• Sengupta, Ashis. 2012. “Staging Diaspora: South Asian American Theater Today.” Journal of American Studies, 46 (4), 831–854. 

Week 12  Asian Theatre in the Age of Globalization

• Savran, D. 2014. “Trafficking in transnational brands: The new ‘broadway-style’ musical.” Theatre Survey, 55 (3), 318-342. 
• Kim, H. 2020. “Reckoning with Historical Conflicts in East Asian Theatre Festivals: The BeSeTo Theatre Festival and Gwangju Media Arts Festival.” In R. Knowles (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 192-206.

Week 13  Transposition and Transmission: Asia in Theatre Translation

• Geraldine Brodie. 2019. “Theatre translation” in Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, eds., Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 584-588. 
• Weihong Du. 2016. “S. I. Hsiung: New Discourse and Drama in Early Modern Chinese Theatrical Exchange.” Asian Theatre Journal, 33 (2), 348-68. 
• Takiguchi, Ken. 2016. “Translating Erased History: Inter-Asian Translation of the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet.” Journal of World Languages, 3 (1), 22–36. 

Week 14  Decolonial Asia

• Fortier, Mark. (2014). “Post-Colonial Theory.” Theory/Theatre : An Introduction. Routledge. 130-143.
• Varney, Eckersall, P., Hudson, C., and Hatley, B. 2013. “Modern Drama and Postcolonial Modernity in Indonesia.” Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan. 49-63.
• Lieder, K. Frances. 2015. “Not-Feminism: A Discourse on the Politics of a Term in Modern Indian Theatre.” Asian Theatre Journal, 32 (2), 598–618. 

Week 15  Assignment Workshop 2: Performing Ethnic/Cultural Identity for a Multicultural Audience

• THEATRE REPLACEMENT PRESENTS BIOBOXES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBf5KL54d7Y
• Solga, Kim. 2010. “Artifacting an Intercultural Nation : Theatre Replacement’s BIOBOXES.” TDR : Drama Review 54 (1), 161–166.

Each student will workshop within a group and create within the class time a short performance that engages with the theme of their own or others’ ethnic/cultural identity and perform for their classmates on a voluntary basis at the end of the class. 

The performance can draw on, comment on, or subvert any model of Asian theatre and performance that we covered in this class, including but not limited to: intercultural theatre, diaspora theatre, theatre translation, etc. It can also draw on the form of BIOBOXES demonstrated in Theatre Replacement’s production.