Theatre and Performance in Small Nations

Description

Arguing that the cultures of small nations offer vital insights into the way people relate to national identity in a globalized world, Theatre and Performance in Small Nations features an array of case studies that examine the relationships between theater, performance, identity, and the nation. These contributions cover a wide range of national contexts, including small “stateless” nations such as Catalonia, Scotland, and Wales; First Nations such as indigenous Australia and the Latino United States; and geographically enormous nations whose relationships to powerful neighbors radically affect their sense of cultural autonomy

Introduction – Steve Blandford

Chapter 1: Location, Location, Location: Plays and Realities: Living Between the Pre-modern and the Postmodern in Irish Theatre – Cathy Leeney

Chapter 2: Processes and Interactive Events: Theatre and Scottish Devolution – Ian Brown

Chapter 3: Theatre and Performance in a Devolved Wales – Steve Blandford

Chapter 4: Contemporary Catalan Theatre and Identity: The Haunted Mirrors of Catalan Directors’ Shakespeares – Helena Buffery

Chapter 5: Tales from the Wild East – Goran Stefanovski

Chapter 6: A National Theatre in New Zealand? Why/Not? – Sharon Mazer

Chapter 7: Between Pride and Shame: A Dialogic Consideration of Honour Bound and Reconciliation! What’s the Story? in Pursuit of an Australian National Identity – Rea Dennis

Chapter 8: Under the Radar: Latin@/Hispanic Theatre in North Texas – Teresa Marrero

Chapter 9: Challenging Racial Categorisation Through Theatre: English-language Theatre in Malaysia – Susan Philip

Chapter 10: From Springtime Erotics to Micro-nationalism: Altering Landscapes and Sentiments of the Assamese Bihu dance in North-east India – Aparna Sharma

Sujets

• Theater
• Performing Arts
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Theatre
• General officer
• Cultural studies
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841507859
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2013 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2013 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Holly Rose
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Production manager: Jessica Mitchell
Typesetting: Planman Technologies
ISBN 978-1-84150-646-3
eISBN 978-1-84150-785-9
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Steve Blandford
Chapter 1: Location, Location, Location: Plays and Realities: Living Between the Pre-modern and the Postmodern in Irish Theatre
Cathy Leeney
Chapter 2: Processes and Interactive Events: Theatre and Scottish Devolution
Ian Brown
Chapter 3: Theatre and Performance in a Devolved Wales
Steve Blandford
Chapter 4: Contemporary Catalan Theatre and Identity: The Haunted Mirrors of Catalan Directors’ Shakespeares
Helena Buffery
Chapter 5: Tales from the Wild East
Goran Stefanovski
Chapter 6: A National Theatre in New Zealand? Why/Not?
Sharon Mazer
Chapter 7: Between Pride and Shame: A Dialogic Consideration of Honour Bound and Reconciliation! What’s the Story ? in Pursuit of an Australian National Identity
Rea Dennis
Chapter 8: Under the Radar: Latin @ /Hispanic Theatre in North Texas
Teresa Marrero
Chapter 9: Challenging Racial Categorisation Through Theatre: English-language Theatre in Malaysia
Susan Philip
Chapter 10: From Springtime Erotics to Micro-nationalism: Altering Landscapes and Sentiments of the Assamese Bihu dance in North-east India
Aparna Sharma
Index
Acknowledgements
This book has been a long time in the making and I would first of all like to thank all the contributors for their patience and persistence. They have all been very supportive as the volume came together and it has been a pleasure working with them throughout.
I would also like to thank Intellect and, in particular, Jessica Mitchell, for her enthusiasm and very efficient handling of the book. It has been a real pleasure to work with them.
The thinking that underpins the book originated in my involvement in the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations at the University of Glamorgan. I would therefore like to thank all my colleagues there for their help and support, particularly David Barlow, the Centre’s first Director, Gill Allard, who collaborated with us on the idea of a series of books on media and culture in small nations, and the members of the Centre’s steering group, who have provided collegial and scholarly support throughout the period in which the book has been written: Paul Carr, Alice Entwistle, Huw Jones, Ruth McElroy, Stephen Lacey, Lisa Lewis, Philip Mitchell, Ieuan Morris, Catriona Noonan and Rebecca Williams.
Finally, as always, most books are written at the expense of others in one’s life and I would like to thank my partner, Mitch Winfield, and my children, Sam and Beth, for their love, encouragement and patience.
Introduction
Steve Blandford
Many commentators have routinely referred to theatre and, to an extent, all forms of live performance as particularly appropriate to the discussion of national identity. Put simply, the act of live performance itself draws attention to the idea that identities are performed and that different versions of identity can compete for our attention or allegiance.
This collection of chapters from a wide variety of contexts will of course seek primarily to open up questions regarding the validity of the very category of ‘small nation’ and the role of theatre and performance in such contexts. Inevitably, though, it will also add to much wider debates about nationhood and its construction per se, as Helen Gilbert has put it:
In the past decade or so, theatre has been increasingly recognised as a critical resource for the study of wildly competing discourses about the nation, particularly in countries with a history of strong state intervention into cultural practice. Always a site of circulating representational forms, theatre becomes, at formative moments in the ongoing narrative of nationhood, a means by which communities register, reiterate and/or contest modes and models of national belonging.
(Gilbert 2004: vii)
While it would be a distortion to suggest that all small nations have a ‘history of strong state intervention into cultural practices’, it is nevertheless legitimate to claim that the idea of small nationhood is inevitably bound up with questions of power and that the majority of small nations are, or have been, involved in contested definitions of identity of a particularly intense nature. Frequently, especially in cases where nationhood does not bring with it the full power of the state, cultural practice becomes a crucial site where such contested definitions are played out.
A clear example can be found in a powerful case that is not represented in this volume, but is nevertheless an important example of the role of culture in the interplay of nation and state. As Filewood very succinctly puts it:
In Quebec the battle for sovereignty may have been lost in the ballot boxes, but it was won in the field of culture. Quebecois theatre research developed its project of exploring and theorising the layers of national history, thereby consolidating in its discourse borders that were much less secure in actuality.
(Filewood 2004: 118)
In Filewood’s analysis of theatre’s role in the construction of a modern Quebecois identity we see an example of a recurrent claim in contemporary theatre scholarship, namely that theatre and performance become particularly important sights in the contestation of national identity when nationhood is not commensurate with statehood.
Of course, many would argue that the case of Quebec is not even the most significant site of struggle within the larger question of Canadian national identity, something with which Filewood himself implicitly agrees when he engages with what he sees as a fundamental failure of recent theatre history in Canada, asserting that ‘[i]t can be argued that the absence of First Nations theatre culture in Canadian theatre historiography has been a form of cultural genocide’ (121).
Here is not the place to discuss the case of Canada in much detail, but there is a fundamental argument of central importance to this volume, namely that not only is theatre a potentially very potent force in opening up questions of identity in ‘small’ nations, but that such questions frequently need to go some way beyond the more obvious polarising questions of power relations in any given situation. This can at times open up areas that are less than comfortable and which are about the identity of small nations that have experienced versions of colonial oppression, but which nevertheless raise complex questions about the dominance of particular versions of new and emerging national identities.
What then can we hope to achieve by publishing a series of chapters on theatre and performance in small nations, as opposed simply to one on the relationship between theatre and nationalism in general? To begin with, the two things are intimately connected as we have already said, but there is strong case for arguing that small nations, particularly at a historical juncture in which a considerable number have ‘emerged’ or are emerging in various forms, have particular things to reveal about the relationship between culture and national identity.
Here it is worth emphasising the idea of small nationhood being defined at least partly by power relationships – particularly those that involve a colonial or quasi-colonial relationship to another state. This is what makes the case of Canada, geographically one of the largest nations on earth, so fascinating. Not only does the nation as a whole occupy a particular kind of position in relation to the United States, but Canada itself remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations with the British monarch as its head of state. Furthermore, the province of Quebec raises issues on its own questions of nationhood intimately connected to questions of language while, as Filewood points out above, the engagement with ideas of First Nationhood is at an early stage of development.
The role of theatre in this kind of context is of potentially huge significance. In small nations the scope for meaningful proportions of the population to be involved with and affected by theatre’s role in the construction of national identity is genuinely significant. Of course, this extends far beyond those that work in the theatre or actually attend performances. It includes the ways in which debates are conducted through forms of media, the ways in which culture is handled in political discourse and, of course, the ways in which theatre interacts with other cultural forms.
The contributors to this book will of course implicitly examine these claims in the radically different cultural contexts about which they write. For now though, it is important to explore some of the fundamental principles behind the relationship between theatre, performance and the identity of small nations as well as exploring further the usefulness and legitimacy of the category of ‘small nations’ itself.
In her examination of the ‘performance’ of national identity in the United Kingdom Jen Harvie reiterates clearly and usefully the key relationship between theatre, performance and national identity: ‘A founding principle here is that national identities are neither biologically nor territorially given: rather they are creatively produced or staged’ (Harvie 2005: 2). The metaphoric