Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific is an innovative study of contemporary theatre and performance within the framework of modernity in the Asia-Pacific. It is an analysis of the theatrical imaginative as it manifests in theatre and performance in Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore.

A companion volume to Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900–2000, this anthology contains nine emblematic scripts from twentieth and twenty-first century Asian theatre. Opening with a history of modern Asian drama and a summary of the plays and their contexts, it features nine works written between 1912 and 2009 in Japan, China, Korea, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Showcasing fresh contemporary writing alongside plays central to the established canon, the collection surveys each playwright's work, and includes: Father Returns by Kikuchi Kan Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech by Okada Toshiki Sunrise by Cao Yu I Love XXX by Meng Jinghui, Huang Jingang, Wang Xiaoli, Shi Hang Bicycle by O Tae-sok The Post Office by Rabindranath Tagore Hayavadana by Girish Karnad The Struggle of the Naga Tribe by W. S. Rendra Truong Ba's Soul in the Butcher's Skin by Luu Quang Vu The chronological and geographical breadth of the anthology provides a unique insight into modern Asian theatre and is essential to any understanding of its relation to Western drama and indigenous performance.

Touch is a fundamental element of dance. The (time) forms and contact zones of touch are means of expression both of self-reflexivity and the interaction of the dancers. Liberties and limits, creative possibilities and taboos of touch convey insights into the ‘aisthesis’ of the different forms of dance: into their dynamics and communicative structure, as well as into the production and regulation of affects. Touching and Being Touched assembles seventeen interdisciplinary papers focusing on the question of how forms and practices of touch are connected with the evocation of feelings. Are these feelings evoked in different ways in tango, Contact improvisation, European and Japanese contemporary dance? The contributors to this volume (dance, literature, and film scholars as well as philosophers and neuroscientists) provide in-depth discussions of the modes of transfer between touch and being touched. Drawing on the assumptions of various theories of body, emotion, and senses, how can we interpret the processes of tactile touch and of being touched emotionally? Is there a specific spectrum of emotions activated during these processes (within both the spectator and the dancer)? How can the relationship of movement, touch, and emotion be analyzed in relation to kinesthesia and empathy?

Since culture, the media and the arts deal with the perception and the processing of catastrophe, what kind of social knowledge does this process produce and how does it contribute to the sustainable development of societies? The book seeks to understand how societies and cultures deal with disaster and the rhetorical means they resort to in order to represent it. It is situated on the cusp between the response to natural catastrophe, the renewed awareness of human vulnerability in the face of environmental hazard and irresponsible policies and the social role of traditional knowledge and humanistic ideas for the preservation of human communities. It aims to be diverse, in disciplinary allegiance and cultural situation, and relevant, by bringing together articles by well-known scholars and policy makers to jointly discuss the possibilities of reframing hazard for the future, so that one may learn from restored behavior instead of repeating the mistakes of the past.

This book argues that dramaturgy makes things visible and does so in two distinct and interrelating ways: creative processes and formal elements of performance are rendered visible and readable; and performance dramaturgy becomes an expanded practice in which performance is a locus for creating wide-ranging events and activities. This exploration defines dramaturgy as a perceptibly transforming agency in the construction, presentation and reception of contemporary performance; and it shows how contemporary performance has an intrinsic dramaturgical aspect whose proliferation of dramaturgical practices has led to a far-reaching reinvention of what contemporary theatre is. In doing so, this book deals with a careful selection of performance practices, including theatrical adaptations, new media dramaturgy, contemporary dance, installation-performance, postdramatic theatre, visionary works by auteurs, and revivals of well-known stage shows. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in theater studies, performance studies, cultural studies, curating, and dance scholarship.

In Transgenerational Remembrance, Jessica Nakamura investigates the role of artistic production in the commemoration and memorialization of the Asia-Pacific War (1931–1945) in Japan since 1989. During this time, survivors of Japanese aggression and imperialism, previously silent about their experiences, have sparked contentious public debates about the form and content of war memories. The book opens with an analysis of the performance of space at Yasukuni Shinto Shrine, which continues to promote an anachronistic veneration of the war. After identifying the centrality of performance in long-standing dominant narratives, Transgenerational Remembrance offers close readings of artistic performances that tackle subject matter largely obscured before 1989: the kamikaze pilot, Japanese imperialism, comfort women, the Battle of Okinawa, and Japanese American internment. These case studies range from Hirata Oriza’s play series about Japanese colonial settlers in Korea and Shimada Yoshiko’s durational performance about comfort women to Kondo Aisuke’s videos and gallery installations about Japanese American internment. Working from theoretical frameworks of haunting and ethics, Nakamura develops an analytical lens based on the Noh theater ghost. Noh emphasizes the agency of the ghost and the dialogue between the dead and the living. Integrating her Noh-inflected analysis into ethical and transnational feminist queries, Nakamura shows that performances move remembrance beyond current evidentiary and historiographical debates.

The natural and man-made cataclysmic events of the 11 March 2011 disaster, or 3.11, have dramatically altered the status quo of contemporary Japanese society. While much has been written about the social, political, economic, and technical aspects of the disaster, this volume represents one of the first in-depth explorations of the cultural responses to the devastating tsunami, and in particular the ongoing nuclear disaster of Fukushima. This book explores a wide range of cultural responses to the Fukushima nuclear calamity by analyzing examples from literature, poetry, manga, theatre, art photography, documentary and fiction film, and popular music. Individual chapters examine the changing positionality of post-3.11 northeastern Japan and the fear-driven conflation of time and space in near-but-far urban centers; explore the political subversion and nostalgia surrounding the Fukushima disaster; expose the ambiguous effects of highly gendered representations of fear of nuclear threat; analyze the musical and poetic responses to disaster; and explore the political potentialities of theatrical performances. By scrutinizing various media narratives and taking into account national and local perspectives, the book sheds light on cultural texts of power, politics, and space. Providing an insight into the post-disaster Zeitgeist as expressed through a variety of media genres, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Japanese Culture, Popular Culture, and Literature Studies.

Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900 – 2000 is a ground-breaking survey, tracking the advent of modern drama in Japan, India, China, Korea and Southeast Asia. It considers the shaping power of realism and naturalism, the influence of Western culture, the relationship between theatrical modernisation and social modernisation, and how theatre operates in contemporary Asian society. Organised by period, nation and region, each chapter provides: ·a historical overview of the culture; ·an outline of theatre history; ·a survey of significant playwrights, actors, directors, companies, plays and productions. With contributions from an international team of scholars, this authoritative introduction will uniquely equip students and scholars with a broad understanding of the modern theatre histories of Asia.

"The static lives of several self-obsessed GenX comic book store clerks are thrown out of balance by the presence of a younger female co-worker, who rightly makes them question the meaning of their lives in a shifting socio-economic landscape."--Back cover.