TY - CHAP
T1 - Modern Asian theatre and indigenous performance
AU - Singh, Anita
AU - Sorgenfrei, Carol Fisher
AU - Liu, Siyuan
AU - Creutzenberg, Jan
AU - Foley, Kathy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 selection and editorial material, Siyuan Liu; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/2/4
Y1 - 2016/2/4
N2 - This chapter examines modern spoken Asian theatre's complex relationship with traditional and folk performance in the past century. Examples from India, Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia all point to a pattern of initial mixture of western and traditional forms in the development of a new form of theatre. It was then followed by an almost complete rejection of indigenous modes of total theatre and entertainment in pursuit of social critical and illusionist realism in the mode of Ibsen and Stanislavski, which limited modern theatre to the urban elite or, in the words of James Brandon, 'unpopular theatre' (1967: 39).1 By the second half of the century, influenced by western absurdist theatre and internal changes - independence (India and Southeast Asia), anti-American movement (Japan), liberation from authoritarianism (Korea) or awakening from cultural nihilism (China) - spoken theatre re-embraced indigenous performance.
AB - This chapter examines modern spoken Asian theatre's complex relationship with traditional and folk performance in the past century. Examples from India, Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia all point to a pattern of initial mixture of western and traditional forms in the development of a new form of theatre. It was then followed by an almost complete rejection of indigenous modes of total theatre and entertainment in pursuit of social critical and illusionist realism in the mode of Ibsen and Stanislavski, which limited modern theatre to the urban elite or, in the words of James Brandon, 'unpopular theatre' (1967: 39).1 By the second half of the century, influenced by western absurdist theatre and internal changes - independence (India and Southeast Asia), anti-American movement (Japan), liberation from authoritarianism (Korea) or awakening from cultural nihilism (China) - spoken theatre re-embraced indigenous performance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047594903&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9781315641058
DO - 10.4324/9781315641058
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85047594903
SN - 9780415821551
SP - 456
EP - 479
BT - Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre
PB - Taylor and Francis Inc.
ER -