This lavishly illustrated book provides an introduction to the richtraditions of South-East Asian dance, theatre and puppet theatre. It focusesmainly on classical traditions which are still performed and separate sectionsare devoted to Burma, Thailand, Java, Bali, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Laos.Chinese theatre in the region and the Chinese-influenced theatre of Vietnam arealso discussed.

The rock era is over, according to one pop music expert. Another laments that rock music is "metamorphosed into the musical wallpaper of ten thousand lifts, hotel foyers, shopping centers, airport lounges, and television advertisements that await us in the 1990s." Whatever its current role and significance in Anglo-American society, popular music has been and remains a tremendous social and cultural force in many parts of the world. This book explores the connections between popular music genres and politics in Southeast Asia, with particular emphasis on Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Introduces the history, methods of teaching, ceremonial styles, basic steps, and famous figures of traditional Asian dance from Japan, China, India and more.

Performing arts in most parts of Maritime Southeast Asia are seen as an entity, where music and dance, sound and movement, acoustic and tactile elements intermingle and complement each other. Although this fact is widely known and referenced, most scholarly works in the performing arts so far have either focused on "music" or "dance" rather than treating the two in combination. The authors in this book look at both aspects in performance, moreover, they focus explicitly on the interrelation between the two, on both descriptive-analytical and metaphorical levels. The book includes diverse examples of regional performing art genres from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. All case studies are composed from the perspective of the relatively new approach and field of ethno-choreomusicology. This particular compilation gives an exemplary overview of various phenomena in movement-sound relations, and offers for the first time a thorough study of the phenomenon that is considered essential for the performing arts in Maritime Southeast Asia - the inseparability of movement and sound.

Southeast Asian Cultures in Perspective is an in-depth look at the different regional cultures of Southeast Asia with an emphasis on current culture. The young reader is presented with an overview of a variety of regional cultures that developed historically and analyzes how the cultural history shapes the Southeast Asian region's current culture. The book is written in a lively and interesting style, and contains the Southeast Asian region's languages, foods, music/dance, art/literature, religions, holidays, lifestyle, and most importantly contemporary culture in the country today. The book has been developed to address many of the Common Core specific goals, higher level thinking skills, and progressive learning strategies from informational texts for middle grade and junior high level students.

This book explores dance and choreography as sites for the articulation of new theoretical and historical paradigms in inter-Asia cultural studies. The chapters in this volume cover a wide range of dance works, artists, genres, and media, from Kathak to K-pop flash mob dance, from Cold War diplomacy to avant-garde dance collaborations, and from festival dance to dance on screen. Working against the Western-centric category of “Asian dance” and Western-centric theorizations of intercultural performance that foreground “East-West” relationships, each contribution shows how dances in Asia make one another as their key aesthetic references beyond Eurocentric influences, as well as how inter-Asia relations emerge from cultural, geographical, and aesthetic diversity within the region. This book is the first of its kind in both cultural studies and dance studies. It will contribute greatly to readers’ understanding of how performance shapes and transforms the cultural and political dynamics of inter-Asia, with a focus on dance circulations in and across East, South, and Southeast Asia. Inter-Asia in Motion: Dance as Method will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Dance Studies, Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations and Politics, History, and Sociology. The chapters included in this book were originally published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

This fascinating book recounts the remarkable tale of a career UN official caught in the turmoil of international and domestic politics swirling around Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. First as a member of the UN transitional authority and then as a personal envoy to the UN secretary-general, Benny Widyono re-creates the fierce battles for power centering on King Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and Prime Minister Hun Sen. He also sets the international context, arguing that great-power geopolitics throughout the Cold War and post-Cold War eras triggered and sustained a tragedy of enormous proportions in Cambodia for decades, leading to a flawed peace process and the decline of Sihanouk as a dominant political figure. Putting a human face on international operations, this book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in Southeast Asia, the role of international peacekeeping, and the international response to genocide.