1. Dr Mary Mazzilli m.mazzilli@gold.ac.uk
Culture and Performance: POSTDRAMATIC TRANSNATIONALISM AND CHINA DR53033A Lecture 5 26/10/2015
Dr Mary Mazzilli

3. We will cover:
Definitions: -cultural theatre; Min Tian and Orientalism
Transnationalism
Postdramatic theatre
Gao Xingjian
Between Life and Death
Potential comparison with Martin Crimp
Questions

4. Different definitions of theatre/culture
Cross-cultural
Transcultural
Multicultural
Intercultural

5. Different definitions of theatre/culture
Cross-cultural - brought together for cross-referencing
Transcultural - transcends particular cultures, seeks common grounds/elements that can not be pinned to any specific culture
Multi-cultural - co-existing in one location or space
Intercultural - hybridization or syncretism

6. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978)
Through Orientalism the West constructed an image of the East by and for the West.
Orientalism is not representative of the Orient but rather a representation of it.
Knowledge of the Orient is produced and reproduced such that it comes to be thought of as actual fact.
Effect of colonialism.

7. Min Tian and displacement
Contemporary Chinese theatre: the displacements of Stanislavsky, Brecht, and Meyerhold involve a re-placement of the Self (traditional Chinese theatre).
Displacements are not a one-way affair
Inter-displacement of both the Other and the Self: adaptations of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy in traditional Chinese and other Asian theatrical forms (Min Tian, 11).

8. Contemporary examples: Shakespeare in China

9. Neo-Orientalization
Neo-Orientalization of the "Oriental theatre" undertaken by the Orient through self-Orientalization.
‘The Chinese anti-realist and anti-illusionist interpretation and practice of China's traditional theatre affected by Brecht's and Meyerhold’s interpretations is a primary example of this self-Orientalization.’ (Min Tian, 12)

10. Main traits of Chinese Traditional Theatre
Total theatre (acrobats; singing; and spoken words): importance of spectacle
Stylization: rules of the game
Stock characters (Commedia dell’Arte)
Story-telling and narrative (literature and drama)
Character/performer: ‘taking over the spirit not merely copying the form’ (Mei Lanfang)
Xieyi (freehand style painting): abstraction and exaggerated gestus

11. Chinese modern and contemporary theatre
Realism and Modernism in 1920s - 40s (Cao Yu, Tian Han, Lao She etc.): project of national identity – Stanislavsky
Maoist period (40s-60s): Socialist Realism and political theatre
Cultural revolution ( ): model Chinese plays
1980s- avant-garde theatre and experimental theatre with Huang Zuoling (Brecht, Mei Lanfang and Stanislavsky) Lin Zhaohua and Gao Xingjian
1990s – Meng Jinhui ‘Pop goes avant-garde’ (Rosella Ferrari); postmodern theatre with Hong Kong-based company Zuni Icosahedron among many others.

12. Displacement Intercultural theatre as a site of displacement
Dichotomy: Chinese and Western theatre as two monolithic entities
Questions: what is Western theatre? What is non-western theatre in the era of Globalization?
Origin and ownership
Performance as site of ideology of culture

13. Postdramatic and Transnationalism

14. Transnationalism and migration
Culture from Country of origin
migration
In country of destination imaginary of country of origin

15. Transnationalism Transnationalism and diaspora
‘Transnationalism is about transcending geographical, social and economic boundaries and the political and cultural barriers and boundary-making processes’ (Ato Quayson and Girish Daswani in M. Mazzilli, 8).

16. Postdramatic Theatre
Hans-Thies Lehmann German book Postdramatisches Theater
Anti-representational and non-linearity (postepic narration); theatre of the real/physical theatre (Forced Entertainment; Wooster Group)
Use of monologies (Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, Martin Crimp)
Theatre of spectatorship and emphasis on performativity
Process of musicalization (Robert Wilson; Heiner Goebbels)
Blur of boundaries between dance, physical theatre and performance art (Marina Abramović, Orlan etc)
1970s in Central Europe/North-America; now examples an be found in Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.
Decentered discourse; no dominant ideology; anti-ideology.

17. Postdramatic Transnationalism
“The word ‘postdramatic’ as a suffix to transnationalism, describes a type of transnationalism that is postdramatic in nature, fluid and open, but also that has, above all, moved forward from its ‘dramatic’ peak” (M. Mazzilli, 7).

18. Gao Xingjian Playwright, director, novelist and painter.
Born in Ganzhou, Jianxi province in 1940.
Forefront of post-Cultural revolution theatre, absurdist and avant-garde theatre (Bus stop, Absolut signal, Wild Man); resident playwright at the Beijing People's Art Theatre from 1981 to 1987.
After The other shore (1987) was banned, he moved to France and became French citizen and never returned to China. He was made Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1992 He published Soul Mountain in 1989.
2000 Nobel Prize for Literature among controversy.
Among post-exile plays: Escape (1989); Between Life and Death (1991); Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992); Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), Weekend Quartet (1995), Snow in August (1997), Death Collector (2000) and Ballade Nocturne (2010).

19. Big question: national and cultural identity
Is Gao Xingjian
French
Chinese
European?
What about his theatre?

20. Gao Xingjian and ‘cold theatre’
Gao’s Nobel Prize speech:
‘cold literature’ as one ‘that will escape for its own survival’ and that does not ‘let itself be strangled by society’ (Gao 2008: 7–8);
One that transcends national boundaries.
Embraces European avant-garde and modernist theatre (Ionesco, Genet, Becket etc.) and theatre-makers (Grotowski, Meyerhold and Brook)
Return to Xiqu, Peking opera.
Zen Modern Theatre
‘Xieyi theatre’

21. Gao’s post-exile theatre
Gao’s idea of jiadingxing: suppositional, hypothetical reality is expressed through the performers/role/spectator relationship
the creation of hallucination not representation of reality
use of different person pronouns (‘she’; ‘you’)
Neutral actor and The Death of character
Total theatre

22. Between Life and Death
First staged at the Théâtre Renaud-Barrault in Paris in 1993.
Woman’s (la femme in French and nüren in Chinese) unconscious trip through her present and past, and between life and death.
Use of ‘she’ instead of ‘I’.

23. Between Life and Death
First part: General sense of guilt and search for consolation and a resolution to her misery
Second part: After interacting with Man, Woman finds that one of her legs has been amputated.
Third part: physical, bodily dismembering/bodily violence and internal turmoil and despair - a nun (nüni, bonzesse or Buddhist Nun)

24. Gao Xingjian and Martin Crimp
Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life (1997)
Female character absent on stage
Deconstructed femininity
Use of monologies
Hallucination on stage

25. Postdramatic transnationalism
The death of character as a psychological entity (Elinor Fuchs) through tripartition
Theatre of presence: performance art
Use of monologies
Silent side characters point to a nostalgic Chineseness and a process of self-Orientalisation
Cultural Transcendence in a fluid theatrical discourse

26. Transnational nature of postdramatic theatre
A process of inter-displacement and replacement, through the borrowing of theatrical practices of theatremakers, like Brecht and Meyerhold, Asian theatre has influenced Western contemporary theatre
Postdramatic theatre as an evolution of modernist practices product of connections to non-Western practices. (M. Mazzilli, 16)

27. Transnationalism in China and Globalization

31. Questions
What is transnational theatre? Is it only related to diaspora and migration?
How do we read/interpret theatrical practices in face of issues related to national identity?
What about issues related to race/ethnicity?
How do we assess the effect of globlalisation on theatrical practices across the Globe?
Can we define cultural practices by their origin? Do we equate national origin/cultural roots with cultural ownership? Maria Shevtsova– ‘purity of culture’
Does hybridity exist? Or is it another form of cultural ideology?

33. Additional Readings
Fuchs, E. (1996), The Death of Character, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Said, Edward. (1978), Orientalism, New York: Random House.