ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL最新文献

{"title":"Speaking of the Spiritual: An Exploration of Knowledge and Pedagogy in Performing Arts in Malang, East Java","authors":"Christina Sunardi","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936936","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article examines spiritual knowledge or <i>ilmu</i> that performers imparted or encouraged me to obtain while I conducted fieldwork on gamelan music and dance in the regency of Malang in the cultural region of east Java spanning 2005–2007 and subsequent visits. Thinking through ideological implications of pedagogy—that is, “[w]hat’s at stake politically in any given pedagogical model” (Wong 2001: 6), I focus on performers’ beliefs and discourses about <i>ilmu</i> as a form of pedagogy and system of knowledge. I extend Kathy Foley’s (1985) and Sarah Weiss’s (2003) discussions of an “empty vessel” approach to performance that is valued in different parts of Java to explore the preparation of a performer’s body to serve as a suitable container for <i>ilmu</i>. I contend that through their beliefs, practices, and verbal discourse about <i>ilmu</i>, musicians and dancers in Malang were maintaining and producing local systems of knowledge, transmission, and competence in a context of globalization, urbanization, and increasing expressions of Islamic orthodoxy and piety in Indonesia. Continuing such knowledge systems was part of performers’ ideological and cultural work to uphold local culture and identity as Javanese people, more broadly speaking, and as east Javanese in particular.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Celebration and Remembrance in Kalibo's Ati-Atihan: Mythmaking, Devotion, and Cultural Memory","authors":"S Anril Tiatco","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936937","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936937","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>The <i>Ati-Atihan</i> is a Philippine festival held every January in Kalibo, Aklan province on Panay Island, in honor of the town’s patron saint, the Santo Niño (The Child Jesus) and, at the same time, a commemoration of the original settlers of the island, the dark-skinned Atis. The festival is believed to predate Hispanic colonialism. However, Spanish missionaries gradually added Christian meanings to it. The festival’s origin is also linked to the epic <i>Maragtas</i>, which tells the story of Ten Bornean Datus (chieftains) led by Datu Puti, who fled Borneo in the thirteenth century and landed on the island of Panay. The Borneans purchased the island from the Ati people. Feasting and festivities followed soon after the transaction, including a traditional Ati dance, which was mimicked by the Borneans as an act of appreciation. Today, the festival consists of religious processions and street dancing, showcasing groups and individuals wearing colorful and elaborate costumes and marching drummers. The street dancing<i>, sadsad</i>, is improvised where the foot is momentarily dragged along the ground in tune with the drummers’ beat. The essay interrogates the <i>Ati-atihan</i> Festival through its three components—a dance-drama called <i>Maragtas it Panay</i> (The Barter of Panay), the <i>sadsad</i>, and the cultural dance competition. I argued that religion (Catholicism), cultural history (the <i>Maragtas</i>), and the series of performances during the weeklong merry-making complicate the festival’s ontology. Entangling these aspects, the festival is explored as a celebration and, at the same time, a repulsion of the foreign (colonial disposition), which leads toward an understanding of the festival as a concatenation of entanglements: devotion and entertainment, utopia and nostalgia, and history and mythmaking. In the end, the <i>Ati-atihan</i> invokes a communal identity, which may be asserted as a recuperation of a pre-contact collective identity that embodies a proposition signifying how the body remembers what the archives failed to record. </p></p>","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decolonizing and Producing Working-class Theatre in Pakistan: The Poetics and Politics of Sangat Theatre's Chog Kusumbhey Di (Picking Safflower)","authors":"Qaisar Abbas","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936939","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article aims to map out the features of political theatre in the contemporary post-colonial society of Pakistan, with a focus on the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Though there were some sporadic developments in the earlier period, a relatively organized political theatre movement, with its ideological underpinnings within the leftist project, started in the 1980s as a response to General Zal ul Haq’s dictatorship. However, it lost its resistive fervor and performative activism due to the neo-liberalization of theatre under NGO projects. The pioneering companies of this movement in Punjab, namely Ajoka (1983) and Punjab Lok Rahs (1986), started working on the development projects of national and international donors. Their politics of resistance against the local and international dictatorial and imperialist regimes transformed into the neoliberal politics of rights, justice and advocacy, dictated by the hegemonic agendas of Western corporations, imperialist governments and think tanks of the Global North (Abbas 2023:360). This phenomenon occurred with almost all theatre companies of the 1980s in Lahore. In this context, the question arises of whether political theatre is possible in contemporary Pakistan, and if so, in what form. This article explores this question by examining the case of Sangat Theatre in order to draw a picture of an alternative aesthetic reality for political theatre that exists outside the realm of NGO influence. At the same time, by focusing on certain decolonial approaches in theatre-making and performance, the article helps to decolonize theatre scholarship and offers an understanding of working-class theatre production in a postcolonial reality. </p></p>","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"K-Pop Dance: Fandoming Yourself on Social Media by Chuyun Oh (review)","authors":"Emily Wilcox","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936947","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;K-Pop Dance: Fandoming Yourself on Social Media&lt;/em&gt; by Chuyun Oh &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Emily Wilcox &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;K-POP DANCE: FANDOMING YOURSELF ON SOCIAL MEDIA&lt;/em&gt;. By Chuyun Oh. New York: Routledge, 2023. x + 184 pp. Softcover, $42.36. &lt;p&gt;Anyone teaching in Asian studies, performance studies, or media studies today knows that K-pop is a hugely popular subject among college students, and research on the topic is in high demand. Chuyun Oh’s book perfectly meets this need, especially for research on K-pop dance, a relatively understudied component of the broader K-pop genre. Oh’s book examines K-pop dance from multiple perspectives—as social media dance, as modern dance choreography, as intercultural performance and identify formation, as social engagement, and as fandom. Written in a highly accessible manner while being firmly grounded in an impressive array of critical performance and cultural theory discourses, &lt;em&gt;K-pop Dance&lt;/em&gt; offers a stimulating and highly original contribution to the study of South Korean popular dance in global contexts.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The book is organized into two parts that map onto the two major contributions of the project. In “Part I: K-pop Dance,” Oh examines K-pop dance as a choreographic genre, with an emphasis on performance aesthetics, training, and the history and circulation of K-pop dance by professional artists in commercial contexts. In “Part II: K-pop Dance Fandom,” Oh turns to K-pop dance as a practice of international fandom among amateurs including refugees, young adults, and college students, with a focus on themes of identity passing, cross-cultural experiences, and aspirations of social mobility. The first half of the book centers mainly on artists based in Asia, primarily in &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 456]&lt;/strong&gt; South Korea but also with one case study of an artist in Vietnam. The second half of the book looks primarily at fans either from or based in the United States. The backgrounds of the dancers discussed in this latter section are quite diverse, including Asian Americans, a Latinx American, and a South Korean international student studying in San Diego, California, a white American student studying abroad in Japan, and a group of refugee teens from Thailand at a community center in Utica, New York. Despite the seemingly disparate contexts and topics explored, the book is united by two related themes: an effort to treat K-pop dance seriously as an artistic and cultural practice with its own aesthetic aims and a specific media and industrial context, and a respect for the labor of fans and the complexity of their diverse intersectional identities, desires, and experiences as they engage with K-pop from a variety of positionalities and privileges.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Methodologically, Oh combines multi-sited ethnography (including on-site participant obse","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ethos of Yajña Ritual: Mapping Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain","authors":"Sangita Patil","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936940","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article maps the ethos of the yajña ritual, sacrificial worship intended to enhance both the person and the community, in Girish Karnad’s <i>The Fire and the Rain</i> (2011). It explores the yajña ritual on both physical and mental levels through the mythological tales. Using the Yavakri story from the Mahabharata, the play portrays the physical yajña as a seven-year ritual, in which one prays to Lord Indra to grant rain to a dry land for ten years. Following the tale of Indra and Vritra, the yajña rite is also carried out in the mythological narration Garbha Nataka, which serves as a kind of mental yajña, giving people a place to reflect on their transgressions and attempt to make penance by sacrificing their interests in the service of the greater good. The crux of both myths is a yajña. The myths are incomplete without a yajña, and so is their professed path from the external yajña process to the internal yajña.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Kabuki, A Mirror of Japan: Ten Plays That Offer a Glimpse Into Evolving Sensibilities by Matsui Kesako and David Crandall (review)","authors":"Jennifer M. Yoo","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936949","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Kabuki, A Mirror of Japan: Ten Plays That Offer a Glimpse Into Evolving Sensibilities&lt;/em&gt; by Matsui Kesako and David Crandall &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Jennifer M. Yoo &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;KABUKI, A MIRROR OF JAPAN: TEN PLAYS THAT OFFER A GLIMPSE INTO EVOLVING SENSIBILITIES&lt;/em&gt;. By Matsui Kesako and David Crandall. Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2016. 242 pp. $60.00. &lt;p&gt;Translated by David Crandall, Matsui Kesako’s &lt;em&gt;Kabuki, A Mirror of Japan&lt;/em&gt; serves as a highly accessible and well-rounded introduction to the world of the kabuki theatre. Rather than attempting to distill a theatre tradition over four centuries old under a single, unified definition, Matsui opts to present kabuki as an art form marked by changes in time, likening it to “a cross section of geological strata” (p. 1). With each chapter focusing on a major play from the traditional repertory (originating from the late seventeenth century through to the beginning of Japan’s modernization in the late nineteenth century), the author utilizes ten plays to exemplify key aspects of kabuki’s historical, diverse layers. &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 463]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The first two chapters illustrate artistic and narrative developments during the Genroku era (1688–1704), recognized as a golden age for the kabuki theatre. Chapter One is dedicated to &lt;em&gt;Shibaraku&lt;/em&gt; (Just a Minute!), a play belonging to the “oldest stratum” of kabuki’s production history and one which exemplifies the development and variation a given play has undergone over the years (p. 7). Matsui demonstrates this to the reader with &lt;em&gt;Shibaraku&lt;/em&gt; by describing how character depictions within the play have evolved via actor contributions, most notably those of Ichikawa Danjūrō I, the first actor to perform as the hero role of &lt;em&gt;Just a Minute&lt;/em&gt;!, who is also credited with creating the &lt;em&gt;aragoto&lt;/em&gt; style of acting for the &lt;em&gt;kabuki&lt;/em&gt; theatre. This discussion is complemented by the following chapter, which shifts from Edo to Kyoto and Osaka, or &lt;em&gt;kamigata&lt;/em&gt; kabuki, and the similar influence of Sakata Tōjūrō I on the adaptation of &lt;em&gt;Kuruwa Bunshō&lt;/em&gt; (Love Letters from the Licensed Quarter).&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; Rather than portraying “bigger-than-life action heroes” like Ichikawa Danjūrō I, Sakata Tōjūrō I was noted for focusing more on dialogue and “realistic” acting. It was this style of performance, combined with what Matsui refers to as the “profligate hero” character type that so appealed to audiences of &lt;em&gt;kamigata&lt;/em&gt; kabuki. These high-born characters embodied an “elegance of shabbiness” that was seen as both romantic and “dashing” despite having descended into debauchery and destitution (p. 29). At the same time, &lt;em&gt;Kuruwa Bunshō&lt;/em&gt; also serves Matsui’s discussion of performance genres within the kabuki theatre, as dance was inc","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Past in the Present: The Religious and Royal Dimension of Newar Traditional Dance Theatre, Nepal","authors":"Gérard Toffin","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936938","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This essay links the contemporary dance theatre of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal to the medieval Malla theatre that was staged from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries by the same Newar ethnic group. A detailed study of both types of performance, ancient and present-day, shows that a remarkable persistence has been at work through the centuries, even after the abolition of the monarchy in 2008. This research particularly focuses on two prevalent past and present aspects of these performances: their religious and kingly dimensions. Examples drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in urban and rural environments are provided. By way of conclusion, the essay explores the social and political significance of these plays in present-day Nepal. Performing dance theatre today revives the Malla golden age and compensates in many ways for the downgraded status to which Newars have been relegated over the last two centuries in Nepal.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From the Editor","authors":"Siyuan Liu","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936935","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; From the Editor &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Siyuan Liu &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;This issue starts with Christina Sunardi’s “Speaking of the Spiritual: An Exploration of Knowledge and Pedagogy in Performing Arts in Malang, East Java,” which examines &lt;em&gt;ilmu&lt;/em&gt; or spiritual knowledge Sunardi’s teachers imparted or encouraged her to obtain during her fieldwork on gamelan music and dance in east Java. Viewing their practice as pedagogy, Sunardi methodically documents the ways her teachers conceptually and physically transmitted or prepared her to receive &lt;em&gt;ilmu&lt;/em&gt;, whether through ascetic practices and ceremonies or helping her to interpret dreams and encouraging her to ask spirits for permission or blessings. In addition to performance pedagogy, Sunardi also contends that the emphasis on &lt;em&gt;ilmu&lt;/em&gt; as “part of performers’ cultural work to maintain local culture and ways of knowing, teaching, learning, and doing the arts despite the influences of Western and Middle Eastern cultures that have been aspects of globalization and urbanization.”&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The other article on Southeast Asian performance, “Celebration and Remembrance in Kalibo’s Ati-atihan: Mythmaking, Devotion, and Cultural Memory” by S Anril Tiatco, studies the Philippine Ati-Atihan festival in Kalibo on Panay Island, which both honors the town’s patron saint, Santo Niño (The Child Jesus), and commemorates the original settlers of the island, the dark-skinned Atis. As such, the festival both predates the Spanish colonialism and is fused with Christian meaning. As a juror of its 2020 competition, Tiatco examines the festival’s three components, a dance drama reenacting the Borneans’s initial encounter with the Ati people and purchase of the island, an improvised street dance, and a cultural dance competition. He argues the festival is “a concatenation of entanglements: devotion and entertainment, utopia and nostalgia, and history and mythmaking.”&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Moving on to South Asia, Gérard Toffin’s “The Past in the Present: The Religious and Royal Dimension of Newar Traditional Dance Theatre, Nepal” focuses on a geographic site rarely covered in &lt;em&gt;Asian&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;[End Page iii]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Theatre Journal&lt;/em&gt;. A social anthropologist with decades of fieldwork in the Kathmandu Valley, Toffin makes a case for the strong relationship between contemporary dance theatre of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley and theatre of the Malla dynasty between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, largely thanks to the geographical seclusion of the valley and appreciation of the form by the region’s subsequent rulers. He focuses on two notable aspects of the performance, namely its religious and kingly dimensions. At the same time, he also notes that while these features are still strong even after the abolition of the monarchy in 2008, the event has shifted the patronage system f","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Re-Purposing Suzuki: A Hybrid Approach to Actor Training by Maria Porter (review)","authors":"Christopher J. Staley","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a936950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a936950","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Re-Purposing Suzuki: A Hybrid Approach to Actor Training&lt;/em&gt; by Maria Porter &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Christopher J. Staley &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;RE-PURPOSING SUZUKI: A HYBRID APPROACH TO ACTOR TRAINING&lt;/em&gt;. By Maria Porter. New York: Routledge, 2022. 172 pp. Paperback, $42.95. &lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Re-Purposing Suzuki: A Hybrid Approach to Actor Training&lt;/em&gt;, Maria Porter offers a “system of text analysis” that synthesizes certain principles that she “culled from the Suzuki [Method of Actor Training]” (p. 29). For context, the Suzuki Method was developed by Suzuki Tadashi and members of Waseda Shogekijo (Waseda Little Theatre) which became the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) in 1976. The forms in this so-called “vocabulary of the feet” originated as blocking from SCOT’s repertory. As their plays began touring on international circuits, the company needed to onboard new actors who, in order to perform, required training in this aesthetic. Out of their rehearsal practice, a method was extracted that since became a major paradigm shift in global actor training pedagogies.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Porter explains in her autobiographical sections that she participated in the mid 1980s and early 1990s Summer Training Camps hosted by SCOT. She joined a cohort of international artists who went to the village of Toga-mura to study the method at its source. Of this gathering, Porter became most affiliated with Steve Pearson and Robyn Hunt, both founders of the Pacific Performance Project and early bridges between SCOT and American institutions like University of California San Diego. Porter prefaces that she learned her ability to &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 468]&lt;/strong&gt; “re-purpose” the Suzuki Method by following a model of adaptation that Pearson and Hunt provided after they stopped working with SCOT. Along with Pearson and Hunt, other Americans worked with Suzuki in the late 1970s and 1980s, who then became company members of StageWest, such as Kelly Maurer, Will Bond, Tom Nelis, and Ellen Lauren. Along with Anne Bogart, Suzuki conjoined this collective into SITI Company, making them primary disseminators of the Suzuki Method worldwide.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Porter harkens to this lineage, and confirms she received “permission” from Suzuki to teach decades ago. This is not necessarily for self-legitimization, but rather to suggest how varied all these artists’ legacies have since become. Through this variability, Porter evidences how overdetermined the method remains due to the increasing number of students and collaborators who have traveled to Toga for training and left with their own agendas. The field of Suzuki Method practitioners and teachers—sanctioned or otherwise—is larger and more unwieldy than ever given the range of artists/teachers adapting it for their own ends. This book accords with that trend.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Porter’s methodology extracts differe","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory In Japanese Noh Theater by Susan Blakeley Klein (review)","authors":"Justine Wiesinger","doi":"10.1353/atj.2024.a927723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a927723","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory In Japanese Noh Theater&lt;/em&gt; by Susan Blakeley Klein &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Justine Wiesinger &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;DANCING THE DHARMA: RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ALLEGORY IN JAPANESE NOH THEATER&lt;/em&gt;. By Susan Blakeley Klein. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021. 401 pp. Hardcover, $70.00. &lt;p&gt;Susan Blakeley Klein’s &lt;em&gt;Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater&lt;/em&gt; makes a compelling argument for attention to the context of the period in which noh plays were written and to the reception practices and strategies that late medieval people might have brought to the work in the fourteenth century. Klein tells us that in the twentieth century, noh was typically appreciated and taught in a universalized, ahistorical mode that ignored or minimized the context of each play’s original performance circumstances, contemporaneous esoteric religious interpretations, and heritage of literary allegories (p. 8). By bringing forward these aspects through reference to the context of production as well as the “secret” literary and religious knowledge to which the composers and some receivers of these works were privy, Klein provides examples of how a reader can derive more richly layered and consequential understandings of what a play was intended to communicate in its time. In some cases, these understandings have been lost centuries ago, resulting in revisions or abandonment of texts whose meanings or intent became unclear due to reliance on specific subtextual knowledge. Klein’s textual strategies therefore offer the possibility of revitalization for “difficult” plays and new appreciation of the impact of others.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dancing the Dharma&lt;/em&gt; is organized in three parts. Part 1 of the book lays the groundwork for Klein’s later analyses, introducing medieval practices of allegoresis and poetic appreciation. She shows that polysemy and multiple identities were key to the reception of texts, particularly classical texts, at the highest level. This practice of allegorical interpretation itself has political import in the medieval period as a way to work around inconsistencies in classical texts in order to strengthen the cachet of Japan’s culture. At the same time, Klein &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 224]&lt;/strong&gt; points out that multivalent readings also had religious potency in a syncretic belief system that paired foreign and domestic deities, allowing a single figure appearing in a play to maintain multiple identities. These layers of identity and interpretation especially proliferated as prominent historical people depicted in noh plays were vested with secret divine identities. The multiplicity of identity also offers enhanced opportunities to create resonances between dramatic characters and noh patrons’ favored deitie","PeriodicalId":42841,"journal":{"name":"ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141061039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}