Asian Theatre and Globalization – Global Theatre Histories

16/10/2018

New Publication Out: Sounding Modernities: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869-1946 von meLê Yamomo

meLê Yamomo, former PhD student of the Global Theatre Histories research project and Assistant Professor of Theatre, Performance, and Sound Studies at the University of Amsterdam, has just published his PhD thesis Sounding Modernities: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869-1946.

His project examines the intersection between sound and modernity in dramatic and musical performance in Manila and the Asia-Pacific between 1869 and 1948. During this period, tolerant political regimes resulted in the globalization of capitalist relations and the improvement of transcontinental travel and worldwide communication. This allowed modern modes of theatre and music consumption to instigate the uniformization of cultural products and processes, while simultaneously fragmenting societies into distinct identities, institutions, and nascent nation-states.

Taking the performing bodies of migrant musicians as the locus of sound, this book argues that the global movement of acoustic modernities was replicated and diversified through its multiple subjectivities within empire, nation, and individual agencies. It traces the arrival of European travelling music and theatre companies in Asia which re-casted listening into an act of modern cultural consumption and follows the migration of Manila musicians as they engaged in the modernization project of the neighboring Asian cities.

meLê Yamomo: Sounding Modernities: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869-1946. Palgrave-Macmillan (2018).

29/07/2018

Globale Theatergeschichte schreiben – ein Porträt im DFG-Magazin “forschung”, 2/2018

Kunst darf alles, Theater ist grenzenlos. Wie aber schreibt man ihre Geschichte(n)? – Die performativen Künste aus einer transnationalen, transregionalen, transkulturellen Perspektive zu schreiben, scheint so offenkundig – wie es lange ein Desiderat blieb. Mit dem von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) geförderten Reinhart Koselleck Projekt, “Global Theatre History”, das 2010 am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der LMU München seine Anfänge nahm, haben wir dies zunächst im Kleinen probiert. Das internationale Netzwerk an wissenschaftlichen Partnern wuchs und wuchs mit den Jahren. Fragen wurden mehr, unbearbeitete Felder der Theaterhistoriographie zeigten sich allerorts. Als die Förderung naturgemäß 2016 auslief, waren wir uns schnell einig, dass das erst der Anfang sein konnte. Also formten wir das Centre for Global Theatre History, um den Diskurs um die historischen Verflechtungen der Theaterkünste über Grenzen hinweg weiterzuführen.

In der aktuellen Ausgabe des DFG-Magazins findet sich ein Porträt über die Ansätze und Arbeit innerhalb der Globalen Theatergeschichte, verfasst von Nic Leonhardt, neben Christopher Balme Direktorin des Centres.

Zum Artikel geht es hier: Nic Leonhardt: “Der Vorhang fällt nie”. In: forschung. Das Magazin der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. 2/2018, S. 22–27.

Noch mehr Global Theatre Histories: www.gth.theaterwissenschaft.uni-muenchen.de www.gth.hypotheses.org

09/10/2017

new series: A Cultural History of Theatre (ed. C. B. Balme & T. C. Davis), Bloomsbury

Edited by Tracy C. Davis and Christopher B. Balme, this new Cultural History of Theatre series offers an insightful survey from ancient times (500 BCE) to the present. The set of six volumes covers a span of 2,500 years, tracing the complexity of the interactions between theatre and culture.
Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters, namely Institutional Frameworks, Social Functions, Sexuality and Gender, The Environment of Theatre, Circulation, Interpretations, Communities of Production, Repertoire and Genres, Technologies of Performance, and Knowledge Transmission: Media and Memory.

Volume 1: A Cultural History of Theatre in Antiquity (Edited by Martin Revermann)
Volume 2: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Middle Ages (Edited by Jody Enders)
Volume 3: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Early Modern Age (Edited by Robert Henke)
Volume 4: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Age of Enlightenment (Edited by Mechele Leon)
Volume 5: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Age of Empire (Edited by Peter Marx)
Volume 6: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age (Edited by Kim Solga)

Five GTH Centre members contributed to volume 5, A Cultural History of theatre in the Age of Empire: Jim Davis, Nic Leonhardt, Derek Miller, Stanca Scholz-Cionca, and Laurence Senelick.

08/11/2016

GTH @ European Theatre Perspectives Symposium in Wroclaw, Poland

Nic Leonhardt is attending the symposium Europen Theatre Perspectives. Exploring Channels for Cross-Cultural Engagement in Performance from 7-9 November, 2016 in Wroclaw, Poland,

The event is jointly organized by Culture Hub (London, UK) and the Grotowski Institute (Wroclaw, Poland) and framed by the Theatre Olympics and European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016 programmes.

Nic’s talk Geteilte Geschichte(n): Exploring theatre histories as shared and divided deals with Shalini Randeria’s and Andreas Eckert’s understanding of history as ‘geteilt’, i.e. divided and shared, and discusses whether we could speak of third understanding of history, that of “common” or “commons”. She will also talk about the work of the GTH Centre as well as the Theatrescapes database.

In addition, conference delegates will have the chance to learn more about the GTH Center and its projects at a ‘Community Café’ to take place during the symposium.

29/07/201529/07/2015

New paper by Nic Leonhardt: “Re-routing the World Tour of the Boosra Mahin Siamese Theatre Troupe (1900)”

published in Theatre Research International, Volume 40 / Issue 02 / July 2015, pp 140-155

abstract:

“Bangkok, Singapore, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St Petersburg – some thirty performers of the Boosra Mahin Siamese Theatrical Troupe toured the world in 1900. Daily newspapers enthusiastically reported on the unprecedented shows of the performers ‘from the land of the white elephant’. After they disappeared from the map of theatre history, in 2010 Thai choreographer Pichet Klunchun ‘revives’ the troupe in his performance Nijinsky Siam. He follows their October 1900 St Petersburg show – the very performance attended by choreographer Mikhail Fokine and costume designer Léon Bakst, who later worked closely with Vaslav Nijinsky. In 1910, Nijinsky’s La danse siamoise/Siamese Dance premiered at the Marinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. This article follows the routes of the Boosra Mahin Troupe on the basis of selected primary sources and from a global-historical perspective. In tracing the Boosra Mahin Troupe and their tours, the article not only maps their manifold routings and reroutings, but also advocates for the need for a global theatre historiography that puts past cultural entanglements and connected performance histories centre stage.”

Paper

28/05/2014

Asian Theatre and Globalization – Christopher Balme in Beijing

balme_pic Christopher Balme (PI of the GTH project) held the opening address at the 1st World Theatre Education Convention, Central Academy of Drama, Beijing (www.atecnet.org/ATECEN/) on 18 May, 2014 under the auspices of the Asian Theatre Education Centre (ATEC).

The paper was entitled: ‘Asian Theatre and Globalization: Historical Perspectives’. (see Asian Theatre and Globalization_Balme for an extended version of the talk)