Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities ed. by Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt

Abstract

Reviewed by: Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities ed. by Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt Maho A. Ishiguro (bio) Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities. Edited by Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2017. Music and Performing Arts of Asia and the Pacific. vii + 363 pp., 35 b&w illustrations. ISBN: 9780824869861 (hardcover), $72.00; ISBN: 9780824881481 (paperback), $32.00. Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities came out of two conferences that were part of the Voices of Asian Modernities Project curated by the University of Pittsburgh, Leiden University, and the KITLV. The book features 14 articles by both emerging and veteran scholars. The chapters, organized into four sections, are case studies about female performers in popular music industries who navigated Asian modernities particular to China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, colonial Malaya, and Iran. Weintraub and Barendregt define modernity as “processes of profound social transformations and accompanying forms of politics (nation- state), economics (capitalism), technology (mass media), and culture . . . , as a project that is necessarily unfinished and in constant need of transformation. . . . We aim here to study modernity’s successive changes as people and societies have felt the need to make their present situation better” (10–11). In particular, the editors find the multiple- modernities approach, rather than a singular modernity that privileges the West as the reference point, as appropriate for their book, following Chu and Man’s statement (2010, 14) that “when ‘Asian’ is not as homogenous as the term implies, there should be different modernities across Asia” (11). As a whole, the book gives us a cohesive, comparative look into the female performers’ roles in popular- music industries from the early twentieth century to the present as “artistic pioneers” and “active agents in the creation of local performance cultures” (3). The following paragraphs will give snapshots of each chapter, followed by my personal recommendation of this book. Part 1, “Triumph and Tragedies of the Colonized Voice,” takes us to China, Korea, colonial Malaya, and diasporic Chinese communities in the early twentieth century when Asian female artists braved their way into newly developing modernities of these locales. Yiman Wang (chapter 2) discusses two Chinese female actresses during the time between the two world wars. Strategically using their vocal performances, language skills, and visual presentation and further taking advantage of the shifting cinematic technologies of the time, the actresses played pivotal roles in developing modern national cinema in China and facilitating diasporic cosmopolitanism in Europe. Tifen Beus (chapter 3) examines China’s first modernization movement, from which new symbols of modern women and discourses on gender were born. Tan Sooi [End Page 154] Beng (chapter 4) takes us to Malaya, where a group of Muslim women artists carved a new notion of womanhood in the entertainment industry. They practiced self- agency in entertainment industries and challenged the conventional status of women while continuing to adhere to Malay women’s customs, decorum, and Islamic values. Joshua Pilzer (chapter 5) discusses the entanglement between popular cultures, reputable art schools, and the sex industry during the time of Japanese imperialism in Korea. Part 2, “Modern Stars and Modern Lives,” sheds light on three female singers who lived through the changing sociopolitical climate of Japan, Indonesia, and India in the 1960s and 1970s. As these female singers experienced modernity, as defined in each of their locales, gendered attitude became an important framework they bent, defied, and yet continued to respect in order to receive public acceptance. In chapter 6, Christine Yano discusses Misora Hibari, who was heralded as the people’s voice in postwar Japan, and how she evolved as a singer from “a spunky orphan, the adult sufferer” to “the diva superstar” due to her versatility in expressing a wide range of emotions vocally in her performances (140). In chapter 7, Andrew Weintraub discusses the songs of Titiek Puspa, which were sung and recorded at a time of sociopolitical transition between the first two presidents in Indonesia with contrasting political ideologies on women’s positions in society. Weintraub gives particular attention to songs about various experiences of modernity, which Titiek sings from female perspectives. In chapter 8...