Theatrical Genre Research Articles

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note Eero Laine, Assistant Professor I am hearing from friends and colleagues in various parts of the world that they are attending theatre again—in person. Of course, some never really stopped going to the theatre because of exceptional public health measures in their area or country and others still are now in the midst of the worst crises of the pandemic to date. Indeed, in light of these extremely uneven turns of the past year and as we labor over and through theories of drama and criticism, we might mark both the sometimes insignificance of theatre in the face of a virulent disease, and yet how much it means. That is, those everyday experiences from before the global sweep of the pandemic are anything but mundane today. Not that attending theatre was necessarily steeped in mundanity, but it was and is and will be part of the day-to-day life of the cities and communities we live in and around. The bulk of this issue is devoted to Michelle Liu Carriger’s edited special section “#PerformativeX,” which examines the uses and misuses of the term “performative” and the ways its definition may have changed through circulation. As theatre was disrupted by the pandemic (at least for most of the authors in the special section, from what I can tell of their geography), theatrical and performance studies language crept outward into popular discourse and on social media. This timely special section reframes central questions of theatre and performance theory and offers readers a number of entries into a term that is both common and complex. Together, the authors of the special section direct us toward the etymology and theoretical genealogy of performative actions, gestures, and utterances, while thinking through their current and potential future uses. The three original research articles in this issue examine a range of subjects and methodologies through which the journal considers dramatic theory and criticism. In “Against the Flows of Theory: Expanding the Ghost with Japanese Noh,” Jessica Nakamura reconsiders theories of ghosting and ghosts in the theatre. Furthering field-defining conversations on the directionality of knowledges and assumptions around epistemological centers, Nakamura’s article pushes the field to move beyond many of its assumptions about both its form and representation. Alison Walls’s “Black and White in Black and White: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Sensation Scene in An Octoroon,” examines the key scenes in the critically acclaimed play and the ways that plays on theatrical genre opens the play to and implicates the audience. Finally, Patrick Scorese takes on longstanding questions of the field in “‘The Act of Sepulcher’: Effigies and Other Affects Toward a Theory of Historiographic Performance.” Here, Scorese draws on a comparative approach that places his own performance work among other theatre and performance artists and playwrights to show theory in practice. There are a number of other current and upcoming transitions at the journal. I want to first thank Chris Hall for his many years of service to the journal as the Managing Editor. Chris has been an invaluable member of the JDTC team during my [End Page i] time as Editor. Chris will be leaving JDTC as he recently defended his dissertation in the English Department at the University of Kansas and has accepted a tenure track job for the upcoming school year. Congratulations to Chris! We are quite happy to welcome Kaitlyn Tossie as the new Managing Editor, who has already begun work with this issue of the journal. Lastly, we’re incredibly pleased that Michelle Liu Carriger will be taking over the role of Editor from me at the beginning of 2022. If the special section in this issue is any indication, the journal is in very good hands and has a very bright future. That means that this is my penultimate issue with the journal—in the meantime, I am working with Kevin Brown and Felipe Cervera, the editors of Global Performance Studies, along with Kristof van Baarle and Kyoko Iwaki, to co-edit a joint issue of GPS and JDTC this fall. The joint issue will feature collaboratively written theatre and performance scholarship, a topic and methodology that has become especially dear to...

The Novel Stage: Narrative Form from the Restoration to Jane Austen by Marcie Frank

Reviewed by: The Novel Stage: Narrative Form from the Restoration to Jane Austen by Marcie Frank Alexandra G. Bennett THE NOVEL STAGE: NARRATIVE FORM FROM THE RESTORATION TO JANE AUSTEN, by Marcie Frank. Transits: Literature, Thought and Culture, 1650-1850. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2020. 230 pp. $120.00 hardback; $34.95 paperback; $34.95 ebook. Though Marcie Frank's The Novel Stage: Narrative Form from the Restoration to Jane Austen came out in 2020, its subject matter certainly resonates at this moment, when theaters around the world have been forced to adapt their craft to new forms of media for over a year. As a drama specialist and a theater practitioner, I tend to assume that genres are inherently collaborative and intertwined and that influence is reciprocal and might be both innovative and hearken back to past ideas simultaneously; these threads are part of the warp and weft of my work. It therefore came as some surprise to me, I have to admit, when I understood that a common perspective posits dramatic and novelistic genres as not only distinct but opposed in fundamental ways, as if novels could not be performative nor plays consumed through print. As a counter to this mode of discourse, The Novel Stage works brilliantly, showing how dramatic genres such as tragicomedy, comedy of manners, and melodrama fundamentally affected the prose writings of figures such as Aphra Behn, the Earl of Rochester, [End Page 398] Elizabeth Inchbald, Henry Fielding, and Jane Austen and how their prose works inherently affected audiences for theatrical genres over time. Not only does Frank explore the ways in which each writer portrayed aspects of theater performance in their works—such as the home performance of Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (1798) in Austen's Mansfield Park (1814)—she also carefully traces the overlapping elements of performance and publication in showing, for instance, how elements of stage action get turned into narrative description in Frances Burney's Evelina (1778). Given that many of the authors she discusses here wrote both plays and prose pieces of varying lengths, the intertwining of genres makes excellent sense, and Frank clearly shows how each form influenced the other during the course of the eighteenth century. Loud cheers and huzzahs are also due for Frank's insistence that none of these writers worked in isolation and that the integration of women's writings in reworkings of literary history gives important contextualization that separating "women's writing" into a subgroup might omit. The process of writing in any period is a tension between novelty and tradition, a process of saying "yes, and . . ." as the best improvisers do; indeed, one of the impressions from the book's argument is that the development of genre in this particular time period was one of both improvisation and careful connection so as to appeal to as wide an entertainment-seeking audience as possible. (This seems especially timely now, when the demand for entertainment sparks both innovation and rehashes of older popular material in the effort to drive more eyes to various media services.) Frank is fully aware of the wider implications of her re-examination of genre in the eighteenth century. Defamiliarizing the relationships between plays and novels not only as forms of writing but as aspects of media consumption enables her to question the idealized aesthetic autonomy that underpins some previous histories of the novel as "a fantasy deriving from a Hegelian aesthetics whose influence is still to be found in the prizing of objects whose form recapitulates their content" (p. 154). Instead, by showing some of the ways in which print and performance informed and fed the demand for one another through this time period, Frank opens up the discussion of literary history as one that is far more collaborative and dialectical than might previously have been posited in the transition from thinking of writing as "poetry" to the classification of "literature." As energizing as Frank's exploration of the interweaving of drama and novel is, it also implicitly emphasizes some of the remaining frameworks that underpin current literary studies, such as the time-bound silos of periodization. For instance, Behn's use of both dramatic and novelistic forms...

Corseted Choristry: Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen as Chor(e)ography∗

Arthur Schnitzler's drama Reigen is primarily known for its explicit content and the scandals it produced. Yet Reigen also reads as an attempt to modernize, and localize, the classical form of the chorus which had not found a place in modern bourgeois theater. Curiously overlooked in studies on literary choruses, the play—its title being one of the possible translations of the Greek χoϱός (choros)—can in fact be resituated as χoϱός‐literature, as choreo‐graphy, as literal transposition of a dance into a series of dialogues. The stringency of its serial format, the attention it gives to movement and location, entering and exiting, up to its suspension of language for the sake of rhythmical notation (– – –) reveal Reigen as theatrical hybrid: as chorus bursting with its copulating individuals. Radically questioning the conventions of “domestic” theater, Schnitzler's Reigen brings to the stage a critique of theatrical genres and conventions that, by the end of the nineteenth century, had clearly outgrown their use.

Poets in Prose: Genre & History in the Arabic Novel

Abstract Novelists in many literary traditions have come to terms with the distinctiveness of their art form by thinking about poets and poetry. The need to differentiate the novel from poetry is especially pressing for Arab prose writers because of poetry's preeminent status in that literary corpus. Many twentieth-century Arab intellectuals have valorized the novel as the representative genre of modernity–whether conceived as an absent ideal or the epoch of consumerist capitalism–while situating poetry as a backward element of contemporary life. But poetry has also offered prose writers such as Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, in A Period of Time, and novelists such as Tayeb Salih, in Season of Migration to the North, a way to reflect on the ambivalences engendered by modernity and the experience of colonialism. This tradition of using the novel to meditate on historical rupture and the fate of poetry continues into the present, even as poetry's relation to political and intellectual life becomes increasingly tenuous.

Texto-som na interpretação para libras no teatro: as notas de interpretação

A presente pesquisa observa a atividade do intérprete de língua de sinais (ILS) na esfera artístico-cultural, no ato interpretativo do gênero teatro. Fundamentados na dialogia proposta por Bakhtin e o Círculo, discutimos que o espetáculo teatral é formado por um conjunto de textos inter-relacionados e apresentamos neste artigo uma análise qualitativa da atuação de ILS em três espetáculos teatrais. O objetivo geral deste artigo é apresentar uma investigação sobre estratégias que ILS utilizam para indicar aos espectadores surdos os enunciados sonoros do espetáculo que, de uma forma ou de outra, produzem sentidos ”“ dentre as quais destacamos o que chamamos de notas de interpretação.

The director's concept of the opera performance through the prism of modern theater aesthetics

The aim of the study. Rethinking conceptual approaches to creating a director's concept for an opera performance through the prism of modern theatrical aesthetics.The object is to determine modern transformations of opera performances as the results of experimentation in the field of musical theatre of young directors of Ukraine.The methodology of research consists of an integrated approach to solving the problem of modern directorial incarnations of opera performances; it involves the use of a system and analytical method to study the factors of influence on modifications in musical theatre and a structural-functional one – to determine the concept of a director's intention in the relationship of its structural elements.The relevance of the study due to the need to comply with the method of work on the performance developed by many generations of directors in the context of the search for new forms of musical and theatrical art in the context of postmodern aesthetics.Findings and conclusions. The article examines the latest trends in the development of the European opera house, their influence on the formation of repertoire policy in Ukraine. The search for new forms of musical and stage art at the junctions of theatrical genres, the increasing role of provocative forms of displaying life, the break of modern methods of expression with classical ones are investigated. The process of transformation of opera performances is analyzed through the prism of modern theatrical aesthetics, experimentation of young creators. The dualistic nature of the director's concept of an opera performance and its characteristic features have been clarified. The directorial content of staging a musical performance in modern socio-cultural realities has been established. The importance of cooperation between the director and the conductor in the development of the concept of the future performance and its implementation is outlined. The structure of the director's idea and the content of its components have been determined. In the experimental works of young directors, the interpretation of a stage work as a creative definition and concretization by the director of the super-task, the end-to-end action of the performance, clarification of the genre and style features of the work, the main and secondary conflict of drama is characterized. The crown of the director's intention is highlighted - the formation of the contours, the main components and components of the general stage image of the performance. Conditional, polyphonic, metaphorical in the art of theatre are emphasized, which, by means of associative transformation, shape the life stream of reality into an artistic and stage image. It is proved that the concept as a generalized creative intention of the future performance gives the process of its creation a specific directorial format, determines the direction of the search for expressive means, and contributes to the formation of its integral artistic and stage image.

Dido Meets Aeneas: Anachronism, Alternative History, Counterfactual Thinking and the Idea of Fiction

AbstractThe anachronistic character of the loving relationship between Dido and Aeneas was widely and commonly discussed among commentators, critics, and writers in the early modern period. From the 16th century onwards, when the word »anachronism« appeared in vernacular languages, its definition was even inseparable from the example borrowed from theAeneid. The purpose of this article is to interrelate early modern debates on anachronism, reflections on the status of fiction and the history of fiction.Starting with the hypothesis that anachronism is a form of counterfactual, the questions posed in this article are: did forms of counterfactuals exist before the 19th century, to what extent did they differ from contemporary alternative histories and, if so, why? The story of Dido and Aeneas in theAeneidcan be considered »counterfactual«, because this version of the narrative about the queen of Carthage was opposed to another, which was considered to be historical and which made Dido a privileged embodiment of female virtue and value.Several important shifts are highlighted in this article. With the exception of St. Augustine (who saw in Vergil’s anachronism confirmation of the inanity of fiction), before the 16th century indifference towards anachronism prevailed: the two versions of Dido’s story were often juxtaposed or combined. If Vergil’s version of Dido’s story was condemned, it was for moral reasons: the exemplary version, considered more historically accurate, was favored throughout the Middle Ages, notably by Petrarch and Boccaccio.From the 16th century onwards, however, increased acquaintance with Aristotle’s Poetics promoted greater demand for rationality and plausibility in fables. This coincided with the appearance of the word »chronology« and its development, which led to a new understanding of historical time. Anachronism then appeared to be a fault against verisimilitude, and as such was strongly condemned, for example by the commentator on Aristotle, Lodovico Castelvetro. At the same time, the argument of poetic license was also often invoked: it actually became the most common position on this issue. Vergil’s literary canonization, moreover, meant that the version of Dido’s life in theAeneidwas the only story that was known and cited, and from the 17th century onwards it totally supplanted the exemplary version. Strangely enough, permissiveness towards anachronism in treatises, prefaces, or comments on literary works was not accompanied by any development of counterfactual literature in early modern period. Indeed, in both narrative and theatrical genres fiction owed its development and legitimization to the triumph of the criterion of plausibility.This article, however, discusses several examples that illustrate how the affirmation of fiction in the early modern period was expressed through minor variations on anachronism: the counterfictional form of Ronsard’s epic,La Franciade, which represents an explicit deviation from theIliad; the metaleptic meeting of Vergil and Dido in the Underworld in Fontenelle’sLe dialogue des morts; and the provocative proposal for a completely different version of Dido’s life, which was made in an early 17th century Venetian operatic work by an author who claimed to be anti-Aristotelian. This study thus intends to provide an aspect of the story of fiction. The change of perspective on anachronism marks a retreat from moral argument, with privilege given to aesthetic criteria and relative independence with regard to history – while still moderated by the criterion of verisimilitude, as underlined by the abbé d’Aubignac, as well as Corneille.

Staging Muhammad: A Subversion of the Hagiographic Genre inVida y muerte del falso Profeta Mahoma

This article examines the subversion of the hagiographic genre in a biographical play from the seventeenth century about the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, written in Spain. In this essay I argue that the contradiction of using a theatrical genre intended to emphasize the holiness of Christian characters in a play about Muhammad unveils the historical tensions and anxieties of Spain’s Muslim past. The disparity between form and content reveals the unconscious political aspect of the play and illustrates why it can be read from two opposite perspectives regarding the Islamic leader. Departing from Caroline Levine’s use of the term ‘affordance’, and drawing on Fredric Jameson’s concept of the political unconscious, I posit that Vida y muerte del falso Profeta Mahoma (1642) is more a reflection on Spain’s hybrid and ambivalent religious culture than a dramatization of Muhammad’s life.

Жанровые формы театра-балагана в художественно-эстетическом поиске Л. Н. Толстого

The paper considers representation of buffoonery theatre genres in L. N. Tolstoy’s artistic and aesthetic search. The article describes development of street performance, festival tradition, buffoonery in the second half of the XIX century, reveals specificity of their influence on the writer’s creative work. Scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that the researcher provides a comprehensive analysis of the problem, examines periodicals of that time, archival materials, refers to special literature on the history of theatre. The research findings are as follows: the author identifies objective causes of decay of this sphere of culture, shows that Tolstoy’s polemics was focused just on these issues, systematizes the writer’s notes on the problem.

INSTRUMENTAL THEATER IN THE WORKS OF MAURICIO KAGEL, GEORGES APERGHIS AND HEINER GOEBBELS

The characteristic of the genre of instrumental theater is both the symbiosis of music and theater, as well as the fact that composers are also directors, while musicians have the opportunity, in addition to their expected roles, to be in contact with other arts. The specificity of the genre is that it is displaced from the original environment and replaced in a new context, which allows the performers to interact with each other, as well as to be in close communication with the audience. The impact of the audience on the performance contributes to the final design of the piece, which is why its engagement is of utmost importance to the genre. Composers such as Mauricio Kagel, Georges Aperghis and Heiner Goebbels made the greatest contribution to this genre.

16s rRNA metagenomic analysis reveals predominance of Crtl and CruF genes in Arabian Sea coast of India

Microbial communities perform crucial biogeochemical cycles in distinct ecosystems. Halophilic microbial communities are enriched in the saline areas. Hence, haloarchaea have been primarily studied in salterns and marine biosystems with the aim to harness haloarcheal carotenoids biosynthesis. In this study, sediment from several distinct biosystems (mangrove, seashore, estuary, river, lake, salt pan and island) across the Arabian coastal region of India were collected and analyzed though 16s rRNA metagenomic and whole genome approach to elucidated the dominant representative genre, haloarcheal diversity, and the prevalence of Crtl and CruF genes. We found that the microbial diversity in mangrove sediment (794 OTUs) was highest and lowest in lake and river (558–560 OTUs). Moreover, the bacterial domain dominated in all biosystems (96.00–99.45%). Top 10 abundant genera were involved in biochemical cycles such as sulfur, methane, ammonia, hydrocarbon degradation, and antibiotics production. The Archaea was mainly composed of Haloarchaea, Methanobacteria, Methanococci, Methanomicrobia and Crenarchaeota. Carotenoid gene, Crtl, was observed in a major portion (abundance 60%; diversity 45%) of microbial community. Interestingly, we found that all species under haloarcheal class that were represented in fresh as well as marine biosystems encodes CruF gene (bacterioruberin carotenoid). Our study demonstrates the high microbial diversity in various ecosystems, enrichment of Crtl gene, and also shows that Crtl and CruF genes are highly abundant in haloarcheal genera. The finding of ecosystems specific Crtl and CruF encoding genera opens up a promising area in bioprospecting the carotenoid derivatives from the wide range of natural biosystems.

AN ANALYSIS OF POST-CYBERPUNK AS A CONTEMPORARY POSTMODERNIST LITERATURE

This study is based on Post-cyberpunk in order to highlight the prominence of Postcyberpunk as an emerging representative genre of Postmodern Literature. Technological progress has altered the ontology of being a human in an era of information technology, thus this study aims to critically discuss the issues of id entity and representation. Although ample critical work has been done on genre Postcyberpunk yet this study is unique in a way that it is a collection of different discursive practices related to identity crises presented in selected Post-cyberpunk narratives. It targets to critically analyze the alternations and transformations in representation of identity in the backdrop of Postmodernist Deconstruction of Metanarratives by Lyotard (1984). Apart from the deconstruction of metanarratives this study signifies the relevance of Post-cyberpunk as Postmodernist Literature that represents society through multidimensional discursivity such as capitalism, hypercasaulization, imperialism, religion, economy and technology. This study aims to deconstruct the metanarratives of identity that were considered to be permanent and claimed to be power narratives. It equally represents the deconstruction of center/margin dichotomy by bringing mininarratives into the center. The method adopted for research is SocioCognitve Approach by van Dijk (2008) from Critical Discourse Analysis.

Notes toward a History of Tragedy and the “Tragic”

This essay addresses the rather complex questions of the history and function of the word tragedy: Is there a historically and logically consistent use of the word that can serve as a constant in discussions of both drama and dramatic theory? I will try to address some of the reasons why questioning the historical uses and transformations of the word tragedy and the notion of the “tragic” may be important today. Such an effort matters not just for theater critics or historians but also for anyone who wishes to discover the active links between these normative generic concepts and their lived context, including their use value in the social and ideological framing of “life” in society or across societies. In times of cultural or intercultural conflict, including our own, the process of defining a theatrical genre can even become a tool, a weapon almost, in defining interpersonal value and human meaning as such.

Beyond the Opera House: Some Victorian Ballet Burlesques

Histories of ballet have tended to pay little attention to Victorian theatre dance that was not performed in the opera house or the music hall. A great deal of dance was embedded in such popular theatrical genres as melodrama, extravaganza and burlesque, and is therefore best understood in the context of the wider theatrical culture of the period. This essay examines two ballet burlesques performed at the Adelphi Theatre in the 1840s: The Phantom Dancers (a version of Giselle) and Taming a Tartar (based on Le Diable à quatre). When located in relation to the generic qualities of other theatrical burlesques of the period, their particular combination of parody and serious attention to classical dance is clarified. In both plays classical dance is set against more demotic dance styles. This serves as a way of mocking the excesses of the original ballets, but also as a way of interrogating the nature and significance of the danse d’école when presented to a popular theatre audience.

‘An ‘authentic’ performance?: The cultural politics of ‘folk’ in Bengal and Bangladesh’ (part 2)

ABSTRACT Folk performance genres have long been adapted to shorter formats for festivals, films, television and the new media. Contemporary practices of Kobigaan (a verse-duelling/song theatre genre) reveal how it functions differently for different communities relying on their cultural/collective memory of the genre. This section of the article first engages with fair and festival performances of Kobigaan by looking at three case studies- the Poush Mela of Santiniketan, the Hay Literary Festival in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the Rajya Kobiyal Mela of Murshidabad, West Bengal. It argues that by focussing on certain components of the long rural version of ‘authentic’ Kobigaan, the performance, in its souvenir or vestigial format, offers further contestations in the idea of ‘authenticity’. In the second part, the article engages with a series of Bengali films between 1940 and 1980 to understand the role that Kobigaan plays in furthering this idea of ‘authenticity’ in relation to film sound. Prototypes of folk performances like Kobigaan and Jhumur have historically functioned to establish a sound chronotope for Bengali cinema where the imaginings of the rural landscape have aided the reception of folk sound. In continuation of this historical trajectory this article also takes into account television shows of the genre and its reproduction for VCDs wherein marginal performers view them as more sustainable means of livelihood, oral historical archives and a promise of continuation of their legacies.

Ciprian Porumbescu, creator and protagonist of the Romanian operetta

Abstract Musical-theatrical pieces of the nineteenth century, propagated by Italian, French and German troops, were an inspiration for Romanian composers. They will create similar fashionable musical theatre genres, in Romanian, for entertainment purposes. Works placed on the border between vaudeville and the lyrical genre can be identified in the creation of the newly emerging genre of operetta: such pieces are the compositions of Alexandru Flechtenmacher, Eduard Wachmann, Eduard Caudella. In the cultural atmosphere of the time, patriotic musician Ciprian Porumbescu (1853-1883) would find the perfect way to put a longstanding artistic wish into practice: to compose an operetta, following the success of his humorous musical-theatre pieces Cisla and Candidatul Linte [Candidate Linte]. A multifarious personality, a lover of folklore and of his nation, Ciprian Porumbescu – one of the founders of the national school of music – contributed to the authenticity and identity of the Romanian musical language through his extensive works; one important contribution is the composition of the first Romanian cultivated operetta Crai Nou [New Moon] (1882). As a tribute to his art, on the centenary of his birth, the creator of the operetta Crai nou becomes the protagonist of the operetta Lăsați-mă să cânt [Let me sing] (1954) by Gherase Dendrino, set during the time of the staging of Porumbescuʼs musical-dramatic work. Crai Nou and Lăsați-mă să cânt are highlights of the Romanian lyrical theatre, from the artistic past and present, and hold their position as musical pieces frequently performed and received with interest and enthusiasm.

Musical dramaturgy of the Broadway musical on the example of “Aida” by Elton John and “Next to normal” by Tom Kitt

Musical dramaturgy of the Broadway musical on the example of “Aida” by Elton John and “Next to normal” by Tom Kitt

A rationale for performing and teaching commedia in a contemporary context: the three-dimensional approach

ABSTRACT How does a unique genre of itinerant Italian theatre survive five centuries and still remain vibrant and relevant today? As a practitioner (performer/teacher) of Commedia I tackle this enigma by unpacking the key components of Commedia dell’Arte – the genre. Inspired by the teachings of Antonio Fava, I have developed a three-dimensional approach (henceforth 3-DA) to performing and/or teaching Commedia in contemporary times. My approach involves authenticity to key characteristics of the genre (use of masks, improvisation, stock characters and multilingualism), and authenticity to time and place. I discuss this methodology that includes a rationale for engaging with each dimension in turn. I also review the extensive literature on the theme, providing provocative examples and draw on my expertise as a practitioner of this timeless craft.

New Forms of Artistic Synthesis in Modern Musical Theatre

The article is devoted to the development processes of modern musical theatre, rendered activate due to the influence of new technologies, which significantly expand the possibilities of synthesizing the arts that are originally characteristic of musical and theatrical genres. Tested in the framework of various cultural practices (performances, installations, shows, etc.), computer capabilities for sound synthesis and new technical tools and 3D technologies unlimitedly expand the possibilities of working with sound, light, color, word and plastic, involving not only a composer in the process of creating a musical and theatrical work, but also designers and engineers as well. The problem authorship arises, which is no longer the exclusive right of a composer, but of the whole creative team. The consequence of these processes is a number of significant changes in the ratio of the artistic components of the performance: the rejection of the primacy of music, the equal semantic significance of all the expressive components of the whole, forming a polyphonic multichannel semantic field that allows us to talk about the “theatre of mixed means”. The mismatch between the logical movement and the semantic content of the verbal, visual, and auditory principles leads to a limitation of narrative and an increase in suggestion, forcing the viewer, starting from the author’s message and personal life experience, to seek his understanding, which implies a plurality of interpretations. The search for new aesthetics results in a design approach when creating a musical theatrical composition, which in each case has a number of deeply individual spatiotemporal features, as well as to a significant transformation of the overall communicative situation in which the spectator becomes a participant in what is happening. The article contains the analytical observations on the works by contemporary authors: H. Hebbels, M. Squillante, as well as works by the creative team “LemieuxPilon 4Dart”.

Report: Indonesian Ramayana Festival at Prambanan (2012)

In Indonesia, the Ramayana is performed in multiple theatre genres spanning puppetry, and masked and unmasked dance drama. Still performed throughout much of Indonesia, these forms function as both ritual and secular entertainments, ones distinguished by characteristically Indonesian elements of song, gamelan music, dramatic narration, costuming (including masks and headdresses), and stylized dance and movement. Historically, the Indonesian theatre genre known as wayang wong (dance drama) in particular may have links to the traditional style of Ramlila performed in India. Even today wayang wong has ritual functions in Hindu Bali, and in Muslim Java, where it was once integral to court rituals. However, Indonesian theatre genres are quite distant from Indian ones like Ramlila, and thoroughly reflect Indonesian arts and sociocultural concerns. After a historic pan-Southeast Asian Ramayana festival in Yogyakarta in 1961, Ramayana-themed sendratari (dance drama) became more popular in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country with a fondness for the Mahabharata. One performance at the 1961 festival had such an impact, it has continued to be staged at the ninth-century Prambanan temple complex in Central Java up to the present. This report discusses the 2012 National Ramayana Festival held at Prambanan to commemorate half a century of Ramayana performances there. It is intended to give insight into the history of shared ideas and aesthetics in Ramayana-themed performance in Indonesia and India, as well as some of the obvious differences between them.