Dance Drama Research Articles

Between preservation and change: performing arts heritage development in South Korea

PurposeAs intangible cultural heritage, traditional performing arts depend on transmission by individuals and collectives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how traditional performers practice their arts in South Korea. The analysis focuses on the transformations of performance conventions and contexts, as well as on new genres that developed in response to heritage legislation and social change during the last 200 years.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on a wide array of existing ethnographic research, the paper compares processes of transmission and transformation of three different genres: the solo singing-storytelling genre pansori, the ensemble percussion-dance genre pungmul and the various regional forms of mask dance drama subsumed under the label talnori. The paper argues that the artists, who perform these genres, while not unaffected by the expectations of their audiences, have the power to transcend traditional boundaries.FindingsDue to early professionalization in the nineteenth century, pansori performers could adapt to the changing contexts of market-oriented modernity and survive until governmental intervention in 1962. Pre-modern pungmul and talnori was performed primarily by and for rural communities, resulting in an interruption of transmission when these contexts disappeared and partial re-invention in the wake of official preservation legislation.Originality/valueThe need for repeated performance in historically varying contexts makes the analysis of performing arts particular fruitful for understanding how practitioners of tradition (have to) adapt to change. A historical-comparative perspective provides concise insights into the dynamics of development that informs tradition today. The inclusion of offspring genres (changgeuk, madang-geuk, samulnori) furthermore shows the potential of heritage development beyond the official system of preservation.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Chandalika: An Amalgamation of Spiritual Conflict, Liberation and Rebel against Marginality

Rabindranath Tagore, the prominent voice of the Indian Renaissance skilfully presented the conflicts of spirituality, marginality and liberation in the form of a dance drama Chandalika. The play depicts the class consciousness and desire of a marginalised woman to liberate her inner self. She passionately yearns to challenge the social norms and rebel against the discriminations in society. The paper proposes to locate the conflicts, sense of liberation and marginalisation from the psyche of an ostracised woman Prakriti, in Chandalika. The study also focuses on the socio-cultural impulses of the playwright and the plight of a woman to break the social obstacle of marginality. The play tends the readers and the audience to rethink the idea of equality and liberation. The marginalised experience, differences are shown based on caste, gender bias and other conflicts are raised as an aesthetic exploration in the play. It questions the existing belief of caste and marginality. Tagore is imaginative and modernistic in the presentation of the play. The sequences in the play are depicted through dance. Dance in the play is a powerful symbol. Emotions, conflicts, struggles and dialogues are articulated in its true form with the help of the dance. The playwright further amalgamates the internal, spiritual conflicts of liberation against the social hegemony in the play Chandalika

Expressive Currencies: Artistic Transactions and Transformations of Warrior-Inspired Masquerades in Calabar

Expressive Currencies: Artistic Transactions and Transformations of Warrior-Inspired Masquerades in Calabar

중국 민족민간 무용의 무대 예술화에 나타난 상호텍스트성에 관한 연구

중국 민족민간 무용의 무대 예술화에 나타난 상호텍스트성에 관한 연구

KAJIAN FILOSOFIS LONTAR CALONARANG

<p><em>Lontar Calonarang's literary works is a work of art. Calonarang term other than as one of the works of literature, Calonarang also means characterization</em><em> </em><em>or the name of a man in the play known as Rangda ing Girah. Calonarang is also known as art form such as wayang pacalonarangan and in staging pacalonarangan dance drama. Lontar Calonarang is a lontar manuscript that specifically tells about Calonarang revenge using black magic against the people in Girah village. This is because the people in the village of Girah no one wants to marry Calonarang child is Ratna Manggali. Lontar Calonarang literary work is interesting to read and researched because this literary work has a philosophical meaning of construct so easy to be understood in depth. </em></p><p><em>The results that can be obtained from this literary work are Teachings contained in lontar Calonarang include Rwa Bhineda, Catur Asrama, and Tantra. The function of the teachings contained in the Calonarang lontar is the religious function, the social function, and the function of cultural preservation. While the philosophical meaning derived from this literary work is the meaning of balance, meaning of education, and the meaning of divinity.</em><strong><em></em></strong></p>

Contemporary Dance Between Modern and Postmodern

Abstract As human beings and artists, what we produce, as well as our own selves, are visibly influenced by a complex ensemble of processes that take place around us and, in time, we can actually be regarded as their result. This evolutionary principle also applies to the role that body expression has in the wide specter of arts, including in dramatic dance and dramatic theatre. All along the XXth century and up until the first decade of the XXIst century, new performative genres have developed, for example, under the influence of political, social and cultural theories and philosophies. The result was the evolution of numerous alternative forms, supported by revolutionary theories in the dramatic field and by new approaches towards performance. Among these, we can find concepts like physical theatre, total theatre and dance theatre, all of them focusing on body expression. A notable aspect of these changes is the fact that they share the recurrent idea of a fusion between different artistic forms, incorporating dance, dramatic play and other theatrical elements in the creative processes and their outputs.

Cheryl Black and Jonathan Shandell, eds., Experiments in Democracy: Interracial and Cross-Cultural Exchange in American Theatre, 1912–1945

Experiments in Democracy assembles thirteen essays illustrating how the American stage cultivated and complicated cross-cultural dialogues about democracy before the civil rights movement. It addresses the role of performance in fostering inclusivity and social justice by highlighting representative works, including dance drama, radio drama, scripted political rallies, and Broadway shows.

“It Tells All Of Our History!”: TheBoi-BumbáFestival of Manaus

This article examines the discourse on modernity and nostalgia in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, with a focus on the boi-bumbá festival, a folkloric dramatic dance that tells the story of the death and resurrection of a rancher’s beloved bull. Although most of the population lives in urban areas and engages in wage labor, the region is still popularly imagined as a “place that time forgot”: a natural area largely free of modern human intervention. This paper discusses how the boi-bumbá of Amazonas rose to stratospheric popularity in the context of urbanization, industrialization, political change, and the “greening” of the region. I conclude by suggesting that the boi-bumbá’s rise is not unconnected to these larger demographic, socioeconomic, and political events and demonstrate how it has come to serve as a vehicle for collective memory and nostalgia.

The Khmer Rouge, Ritual and Control

On April 17th 1975 the communist party of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, took power and evacuated the cities forcing citizens into the countryside while killing many in an attempt to eradicate members of the previous government of the Khmer Republic, as well as former soldiers, intellectuals, and artists. The Khmer Rouge employed various tactics to increase their power during this time including the elimination of ritual practices such as dance dramas, family ceremonies, and religious activities. Drawing upon memoirs, autobiographies, and other sources as well as structural ritualisation theory these developments are analysed using the concepts of strategic deritualisation and strategic ritualisation. After the elimination of important rituals the Khmer Rouge implemented new propaganda based rituals in an attempt to instill their beliefs into the minds of peasants and youth while creating a debilitating fear in the previous city dwellers. These rituals included attending speeches, singing emotionally charged revolutionary songs, and attending dance dramas depicting the glory of the revolution and its leader “Angkar.” Implications of the study are discussed especially in regard to the role ritual dynamics can play in social control and extremist (sometimes genocidal) regimes.

Reviving Wayang Orang Sriwedari in Surakarta: Tourism-Oriented Performance

The heyday of Wayang Orang Sriwedari (Sriwedari), a central Javanese company doing traditional dance drama, was the 1960s–1970s, when it had great popularity and famous stars. From the 1980s the company lost popularity. In 2009, a shortened (padat), tourism-oriented performance model was tested which shows potential for reviving the form and reinvigorating the company.

The Legitimacy of Classical Dance Gagrag Ngayogyakarta

ABSTRACT This article of research findings is to reveal the existence of classical dance style of Yogyakarta, since the government of Sultan Hamengku Buwono I, which began in 1756 lasted up until now on era government of Sultan Hamengku Buwono X. The legitimation of classical dance is considered as "gagrag Ngayogyakarta", furthermore not only preserved in the palace, but living and growing, and may be examined by general public. The dance was first considered as a source of classical dance “gagrag Ngayogyakarta”, created by Sultan Hamengku Buwono I, ie Beksan Lawung Gagah, or Beksan Trunajaya, Wayang Wong or dance drama, and Bedaya dance. Three dances until now can be categorized as a sacred dance, to review performances that are related to traditional ceremonies, or rituals. Three types of dance later developed other types of classical dance “gagrag Ngayogyakarta”, which is categorized as a kind of secular dance for entertainment performance.Keyword: Sultan Hamengku Buwono, classical dance “gagrag” or style of Yogyakarta, legitimacy, sacred or ritual dance, secular dance

Discussion on the Rudiment, Transformation and Fusion of Opera Music

Music is the core power to promote the development of opera and to thoroughly understand its early form and development track in the domain of opera art. It plays an important role in the comprehensive understanding of the artistic nature of operamusic. Opera music originated from the inheritance of excellent music culture in history, the song and dance drama in Tang Dynasty,Zaju in the Song Dynasty and Jinyuanben (a kind of Chinese ancient traditional opera) had began to form the rudiment of opera music before forming into independent musical system. The reform of the development of the opera music is based on the prototype ofthe opera music, with the development of the music itself and the combination of the opera art produced by external conditions of thedual effects.

Cultural Heritage Preservation Methodology: Korean Mask Dance Drama

This article discusses the preservation methodology of South Korean intangible cultural heritage through the case of the ‘Cultural Heritage Protection System’ launched in 1962. Through this system, fifty-seven kinds of intangible cultural properties have been officially preserved. This research examines the reconstructing methodologies of five traditional mask dance dramas, t’alch’ums, through literature review and interviews with performers from the Cultural Heritage Protection System. This article will benefit scholars and students in the performing arts seeking the effective methodologies in recovering original versions of ephemeral dance and theatre.

Daystar/Rosalie Jones, ‘Dancing the Four Directions’

Abstract Dance scholar Jacqueline Shea Murphy introduces Daystar/Rosalie Jones, who created the first Native contemporary dance company, DAYSTAR Dance Drama of Indian America, in 1980 (and who describes her recent work Dancing the Four Directions in this special issue). Shea Murphy first situates her professional relationship with Daystar/Rosalie, which spans over two decades. She then situates Daystar/Rosalie’s work in the context of this special issue, giving a brief overview of some of the dances she has made over nearly half a century, dances centred within Indigenous cultural story and mythic image, and grounded, directly or indirectly, in relation to place.

The Changes of the Folk Dance Art in Tujia Minority under the Background of Cultural Integration—A View on the Changes of Traditional Crying Marriage Customs from the Dance Drama The Rustic Ba People

Under the background of cultural integration, social customs in our country is also changing quietly. Etiquette has always been highly appreciated. Weddings and funeral are major events in life. Marriage customs in today’s status is not only existed as a kind of etiquette, but also as an traditional art, passed from one generation to other generations. This paper includes following two aspects: the current social public overlook on the traditional ethnic minority art from a macro perspective, as well as the national workers‘ efforts to protect the tradition under the context of global integration. As for the revival of traditional art, such as the preservation and artistic change of the traditional customs from life to stage, and the movement and retention of art in the field of cultural exchange collision, all of these have made a clear orientation to the analysis and development on the phenomenon of art changing through cultural integration. Our Chinese nation is a nation that pays much attention to etiquette since ancient times. It is known to us all that people advocate etiquette since Zhou Dynasty. Confucius once said, ‘No etiquette, no independent’, which emphasized the importance of etiquette in ancient China. It is the history of thousands of years that generates the etiquette culture with oriental characteristics. The ritual form of life customs is the periodical recognition of oneself in the cultural evolution, among which the traditional etiquette is growing in the passing of thousands of years, and has become a customs music dance with unique styles. In the era of environmental development and changes, folk customs are gradually evolving. Music dance is not only exists as a form of etiquette, but also penetrated to people's life slowly. Under the context of the development of world diversification, cultural integration and cultural exchanges, the traditional customs is widely spread. Under the premise of retaining the original historical heritage, people have already created a lot of folk dance combining their current living habits.

중국 무용극 <공자(孔子)>에 나타난 인(仁)사상에 관한 연구

중국 무용극 <공자(孔子)>에 나타난 인(仁)사상에 관한 연구

As in the E Jiong: Current Dilemma of the Creation of Chinese Dance Drama

As in the E Jiong: Current Dilemma of the Creation of Chinese Dance Drama

A Comparative Study on the Mask Dance Drama of Foreigners and “Granting a tribute to the emperor” in Korea and China

A Comparative Study on the Mask Dance Drama of Foreigners and “Granting a tribute to the emperor” in Korea and China

Bali 1928, Vol. I: Gamelan Gong Kebyar. 2009. World Arbiter 2011. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Edward Herbst. 16-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 3 MPEG-4 silent films, 66-page text PDF, 9-page glossary PDF. CD, 20 tracks (59:58). - Bali 1928, Vol. II: Tembang Kuna. 2014. World Arbiter 2014. Recorded

Bali 1928, Vol. I: Gamelan Gong Kebyar. 2009. World Arbiter 2011. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Edward Herbst. 16-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 3 MPEG-4 silent films, 66-page text PDF, 9-page glossary PDF. CD, 20 tracks (59:58). - Bali 1928, Vol. II: Tembang Kuna. 2014. World Arbiter 2014. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans. 32-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 116-page text PDF. CD, 22 tracks (67:04). - Bali 1928, Vol. III: Lotring and the Sources of Gamelan Tradition. 2015. World Arbiter 2015. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans. 24-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 119-page text PDF. CD, 23 tracks (67:50). - Bali 1928, Vol. IV: Music for Temple Festivals and Death Rituals. 2015. World Arbiter 2016. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans. 28-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 98-page text PDF. CD, 22 tracks (67:15). - Bali 1928, Vol. V: Vocal Music in Dance Dramas. 2015. World Arbiter 2017. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans. 24-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs, 92-page text PDF. CD, 24 tracks (73:43). - Bali 1928, Anthology: The First Recordings. 2015. World Arbiter 2018. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans. 24-page booklet with notes in English. B/w photographs. CD, 25 tracks (73:03). - CD/DVD sets—Indonesian Distribution - Bali 1928, Vol. I: CD Gamelan Gong Kebyar and DVD Para Maestro Tari dan Tabuh. 2014. Stikom Bali and World Arbiter. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Stmik Stikom Bali. 20-page booklet with notes in Indonesian. B/w photographs, graphics. CD, 20 tracks (59:25); DVD, 16 chapters (40:05). - Bali 1928, Vol. II: CD Tembang Kuna and DVD Imaji dari Masa Lampau. 2014. Stikom Bali and World Arbiter. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Stmik Stikom Bali. 48-page booklet with notes in Indonesian. Colour and b/w photographs, graphics. CD, 22 tracks (66:20); DVD, 10 chapters (64:07). - Bali 1928, Vol. III: CD Lotring dan Sumber-Sumber Tradisi Gamelan and DVD Sumber-Sumber Tradisi Tari dan Tabuh. 2015. Stikom Bali and World Arbiter. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Stmik Stikom Bali. 32-page booklet with notes in Indonesian. B/w photographs, graphics. CD, 23 tracks (67:50); DVD, 28 chapters (78:00). - Bali 1928, Vol. IV: CD Seni Pertunjukan Upacara and DVD Seni Pertunjukan Upacara. 2015. Stikom Bali and World Arbiter. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Stmik Stikom Bali. 36-page booklet with notes in Indonesian. B/w photographs, graphics. CD, 22 tracks (67:15); DVD, 12 chapters (39:23). - Bali 1928, Vol. V: CD Nyanyian dalam Dramatari and DVD Panorama, Tabuh, Tari dan Nyanyian Bali Tahun 1930-an. 2015. Stikom Bali and World Arbiter. Recorded by various contributors. Annotated by Edward Herbst. Produced by Allan Evans and Stmik Stikom Bali. 36-page booklet with notes in Indonesian. B/w photographs, graphics. CD, 24 tracks (73:43); DVD, 12 chapters (34:15). - Volume 49

The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater ed. by Nadine George-Graves

The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater ed. by Nadine George-Graves Ariel Nereson The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Edited by Nadine George-Graves. Oxford UP, 2015. Cloth $175.00. 1021 pages. Focused, sustained attention to how distinctions between dance and theatre clarify or obfuscate disciplinary boundaries is overdue, as these disciplines adjust to interdisciplinary research trajectories and initiatives across the higher education landscape, particularly in the United States. Artistic practices have long been "postdramatic"; so too do our scholarship and teaching reflect and generate an intermixing of critical approaches and aesthetics across performance genres. Yet unproductive silos continue to isolate scholars and artists considered, as Nadine George-Graves terms them in her introduction to the substantial and excellent Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater, "too dance for theater, too theater for dance" (1). George-Graves provocatively proposes that thinking and doing across dance and theatre may in fact be disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary, if we are to conceptualize, as this collection does, the discipline of embodied performing arts in terms of "performative embodiment as a negotiation of power dynamics" (5). Although the entire collection is well worth exploring and has much to offer to scholars, teachers, and practitioners alike, space limitations preclude reference to many of the forty-four contributors by name. Instead, I reference especially compelling chapters from a range of scholarly concerns. George-Graves has divided this behemoth into ten sections: "In Theory/In Practice," "Genus (Parts I and II)," "Historiographical Presence and Absence," "Place, Space, and Landscape," "Affect, Somatics, and Cognition," "Unruly Bodies," "Biopolitics," "National Scales and Mass Movements," and "Infection." One of the collection's strengths is its deliberately global and temporal scope; chapters range from classical Rome to the contemporary moment, and address a remarkably global set of sites. Its organization by thematic concern welcomes a capacious range of scholarly expertise, while [End Page 140] avoiding disciplinary divides. For example, "Biopolitics" includes research on Chinese opera (Daphne Lei), Nicaraguan dance drama (E.J. Westlake), Afro-Puerto Rican bomba (Jade Y. Power-Sotomayor), and the Lindy Hop in Harlem nightclubs (William Given). But in a collection this large, there are many more resonances, groupings, and tensions available for the reader and, due to its largely rigorous, engrossing contents, picking your way through at random will also not disappoint. One of George-Graves's most timely correctives is her claim that though "the genre buzz around contemporary performance may lead one to believe that this is a historic moment of convergence," in actuality "dance and theater have met in many important ways historically and globally…there are aesthetics that not only resist the separation between dance and theater but also never accepted it" (3). Erika T. Lin examines one such historical moment, Morris dancing within the 1621 drama The Witch of Edmonton, via its contemporary understanding of dance and theatre as interanimating in "festive performance" (336). V.K. Preston's analysis of the "first" ballet, Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx's 1582 Balet comique de la Royne, is a detailed, compelling example of how we might approach the archive, having discarded disciplinary distinctions, offering the energizing question, "[w]hat do we make of unfamiliar notions of performance and performativity in the historical past—ones whose conceptions of doing defamiliarize media in the present?" (57). Unfamiliar notions of performance in the past can become so as a result of forgetting, erasure, or both. Odai Johnson's analysis of fourth century Roman mimes (whose art blends dance and theatre) deals with a rising Christianity's forceful erasure of the pagan memories housed in mimes' "bodysites" (325), whereas Thomas Postlewait's historiographical exploration of the dwarf masque performer Jeffrey Hudson places responsibility for Hudson's erasure squarely on theatre historians. Postlewait persuasively claims that Hudson's dwarfism has allowed scholars to "tur[n] away from him because we can see and identify him without difficulty," thus "confin[ing] Hudson within the 'embodied' categories of dwarf, freak, amateur, and child performer" (626-627). Contributions by Marlis Schweitzer ("Salomania"), Lisa Doolittle and Anne Flynn (indigenous Canadian dance in the colonial period), and Anita Gonzalez (nineteenth-century transatlantic maritime performance), among others, further elucidate the unfamiliarity of the past's performances, and...