Abstract: This summary and updating of the life and career of kabuki scholar and teacher Leonard Cabell Pronko (1927–2019) is also a personal snapshot of an extraordinary human being. It should be read in conjunction with the more comprehensive review of his contributions to Japanese theatre studies that appears in Asian Theatre Journal's "Founders of the Field" series (28:2, Fall 2011). The current

Abstract: This article reviews the forty-year career of visionary Japanese director Matsumoto Yūkichi and his theatre company Ishinha, which disbanded soon after the director's death in 2016. One of the most innovative companies in Japanese performing arts in the past generation, the spectacular scale of Ishinha's productions and the rap-like syncopated beat of their choral chanting was unique among

Abstract: One of Japan's leading playwrights and stage directors, Hirata Oriza (b. 1962) won the 2018 Tsuruya Nanboku Prize for his stage adaptation of Takahashi Gen'ichirō's (b. 1951) novel The Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature. In August 2019, Hirata gave a public lecture at the downtown Vancouver campus of Simon Fraser University that, in touching on this play, discussed the social and political

Abstract: The epically tragic earthquake-tsunami that hit Japan's Northeast on 11 March 2011, inflicted profound physical destruction and psychological angst, and resulted in changes nationwide, including on the world of performance. Okada Toshiki, among Japan's leading contemporary playwright-directors, was also influenced. This essay examines the nature of those changes in his life and plays after

Abstract: They have written and directed many plays including A Girl of 16, oph3lia (HERE), and Ludic Proxy (The Play Company). Most recently they wrote, directed, and performed in The Nosebleed at the Incoming! Series at the Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival. As a director, they most recently directed Haruna Lee's Obie Award-winning Suicide Forest for The Bushwick Starr and Ma-Yi Theater Company

Abstract: Okada Toshiki's play Time's Journey Through a Room was presented in English translation in New York in 2018. Changes in direction and temporal distance from the 2011 disasters, but particularly in local context, produce a difference in meaning, understanding, and purpose from the play's Japanese productions. A US audience has a changed relationship to the play's subtext: complex conflicts

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Review essay:LollaPalooka: Ashita no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth, Written and Directed by Murai Yu. Performed in Japanese by Murai's company Kaimaku Pennant Race, with surtitles. Five Performances: 15–18 May 2019, at Japan Society in New York City John K. Gillespie (bio) The performance space on Japan Society's stage had spectators seated so

Abstract: The Delhi-based Jana Natya Manch, popularly known as JANAM, has been one of the most active street theatre groups in India since 1978. The group was commissioned to create DTC Ki Dhandhli (The Corrupt Trappings of DTC) in 1979 in response to a sudden bus fare hike by the Delhi Transport Corporation. The writing of the play was headed by Safdar Hashmi, one of the founders of the group. This

Abstract: Cambodia's spoken drama, lakhorn niyeay, did not receive the same resuscitation for the arts after the Khmer Rouge genocide that was given to traditional dance and music at the end of the twentieth century. It is currently getting more attention from the country's main arts NGO, Cambodia Living Arts, as well as support from the French Institute's Cultural Center, and Meta House affiliated

Abstract: On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in 2020, this paper aims to identify aspects of South Korea's division plays and examine how those produced around 2018 shed new light on the division. There has been a consistent output of plays exploring the division issue since the Korean War in the 1950s, but a new generation of theatre artists distance themselves from their predecessors

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Eugenio Barba. The Moon Rises from the Ganges: My Journey Through Asian Acting Techniquesed. by Lluis Masgrau, and: The Five Continents of Theatre: Facts and Legends About the Material Culture of the Actorby Eugenio Barba and Nicola Savarese Jonah Salz EUGENIO BARBA. THE MOON RISES FROM THE GANGES: MY JOURNEY THROUGH ASIAN

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Use of Asian Theatre for Modern Western Theatre: The Displaced Mirror by Min Tian John K. Gillespie THE USE OF ASIAN THEATRE FOR MODERN WESTERN THEATRE: THE DISPLACED MIRROR. By Min Tian. London: Palgrave, 2018. 313 pp. Hardcover, $89.99; paperback, $59.99. With this well researched book, Min Tian adds to the continuing

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Tagore and Nationalism ed. by K. L. Tuteja and Kaustav Chakraborty Sukanya Chakrabarti TAGORE AND NATIONALISM (e-book). Edited by K. L. Tuteja and Kaustav Chakraborty. New Delhi: Springer, 2017. xiv + 379 pp. The volume, Tagore and Nationalism, edited by K. L. Tuteja and Kaustav Chakraborty, presents a broad gamut of works

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Mak Yong: World Heritage Theatre by Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, and: Mak Yong through the Ages: Kelantan's Traditional Dance Theatre by Ghulam-Sawar Yousof Kathy Foley MAK YONG: WORLD HERITAGE THEATRE. By Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof. Penang: Areca Books, 2019. 160 pp. $30.95. MAK YONG THROUGH THE AGES : KELANTAN'S TRADITIONAL DANCE THEATRE

Abstract: This article pays tribute to the late Princess Norodom Buppha Devi (1943–2109) who played a major role in preserving Khmer court dance after the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia (1975–1979). By looking at some of the innovative choreographies, costumes and musical choices (especially dance dramas) she created, we point out that Khmer court dance is neither purely ritualistic nor rigid; there

Abstract: Dorothy and DuBose Heyward's Porgy was performed in colonial Korea in 1937. This paper explains the process of performing Porgy, in connection with the strategy to popularize the singeuk (new drama) by Yoo Chijin, a playwright and director who argued that one could popularize singeuk by promoting performance of colonial Korean dramas. Yoo's strategy encountered great difficulties because

Abstract: There were numerous factors that gave rise to the emergence of western theatre in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Among these, the contribution of non-Muslim minorities, especially that of the Armenians, is particularly noteworthy as they were the ones who publicly performed western plays both in Armenian and Ottoman Turkish. Though the theatre critics of the early Republican

Abstract: This reflective essay emanates from Zen Buddhism and phenomenology in theory and spirit, integrating the somatic theory of Nagatomo Shigenori with its basis in Dōgen Zen. It invites readers to explore an eco-somatic approach to butoh, a metamorphic and now global form of dance that evolved in Japan in the shadow of ecological and social crisis after World War II. In its descent toward emptiness

Abstract: Bhumi: Mother Earth was a production by Sanggar Çudamani (Çudamani Studio) created for the group's American tour in 2018. Earth as theme was inspired by Bali's social and cultural life, as well as present environmental issues, including exploitation, pollution, and threats posed by humans to our biosphere. Interviews with collaborators, as well as the author's testimony as choreographer,

Abstract: This paper investigates traditional mask making and costume making in Ankiya Bhaona, a ritual masked performance form from the Assam region of India. This form was codified in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under the guidance of Srimanta Sankardev, a neo-Vaishnavite spiritual leader and polymath. The performances continue to be held at congregations or sattras, where they serve communo-ritual

Abstract: This article examines rhythm in the choreographies of Dairakudakan's Muramatsu Takuya using concepts from Henri Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis as a framework. Works analyzed include Dobu (Ditch, 2007), Sonna Tokikoso Warattero (To Laugh at Such a Time, 2008), Ana (Hole, 2009), and Wasureru, Omoidase (Forget, Remember, 2013). The article discusses how rhythm informs overriding themes, performer

Abstract: Jeju Island is internationally known as "the Hawaii of Asia" because of its scenic landscapes. But it is not known that this volcanic island is also called "an Island of Death" in connection with the Jeju massacre (1948–1949) during the April 3 Incident. This article thus focuses on the ways in which the victims of the mass killing are enacted and the cultural implications of conceptualizing

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Race by Martin Orkin Noe Montez RACE. By Martin Orkin with Alexa Alice Joubin. New York: Routledge, 2019. 257 pp. Paperback, $26.95. Race is among the newest texts in Routledge's The New Critical Idiom series. Charged with providing an explanatory guide to critical histories and vocabularies of race for undergraduate humanists

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Theatre & Islam by Marvin Carlson Hala Baki Theatre & Islam By Marvin Carlson. London: Red Globe Press, 2019. 84 pp. Paperback, $9.99. Marvin Carlson's Theatre & Islam sets out to debunk the commonly held belief that Islam and theatre are incompatible traditions. The book explores the complicated relationship between the two

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: New Postcolonial Dialectics: An Intercultural Comparison of Indian and Nigerian Plays by Sarbani Sen Vengadasalam Satkirti Sinha NEW POSTCOLONIAL DIALECTICS: AN INTERCULTURAL COMPARISON OF INDIAN AND NIGERIAN PLAYS. By Sarbani Sen Vengadasalam. London: Cambridge Scholar Publication, 2019. 243 pp. Hardcover, $72.00. In this

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Tokyo Listening: Sound and Sense in a Contemporary City by Lorraine Plourde Po-Hsien Chu TOKYO LISTENING: SOUND AND SENSE IN A CONTEMPORARY CITY. By Lorraine Plourde. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. 220 pp. Paperback, $25. In 1973, Canadian music composer and environmental activist Murray Schafer, in a groundbreaking

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Kathakaliyude Kaipusthakam (A Handbook of Kathakali) by Vellinezhi Achuthankutty Vishnu Achutha Menon KATHAKALIYUDE KAIPUSTHAKAM (A Handbook of Kathakali). By Vellinezhi Achuthankutty. Dubai: Thiranottam, 2013. 745 pp. Paper, $7.80. This book is an amalgamation of Kathakali repertoire's basic information, geographic setting

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the 'Folk Performance' in India by Brahma Prakash Claire Pamment CULTURAL LABOUR: CONCEPTUALIZING THE 'FOLK PERFORMANCE' IN INDIA. By Brahma Prakash. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019. 332 pp. Hardcopy, $47.96; E-book, $36.19. Brahma Prakash's book, Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the

Abstract:Since 2010 the authors have been involved in the production and performance of the Morrisville, North Carolina Ramlila. In 2018 we conducted a participant-ethnography of the production. Many Hindu communities in India and in the South-Asian diaspora have created their own unique Ramlila productions, all of which are to some extent based on Maharishi Valmiki's millennia-old Sanskrit epic, the

expression clearly affected several of these students’ lives in impactful ways, and reading about those personal transformations layers Performing Kamishibai with a meaningful human element. Though its usefulness for Asian theatre scholars may be somewhat limited, Performing Kamishibai is a revealing and thoughtprovoking work for those working in education. Though the study involved students in elementary

Abstract:Himanshu Joshi has been in the field of visual arts, media, theatre and music for more than three decades. He grew up in Delhi, but his ancestral home is in the mountainous Kumaon region, on the eastern side of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. He completed his master's degree in communications, at the Mass Communications Research Center Jamia in Delhi in 1986, and has produced numerous current-affairs

This co-edited volume takes strides in object theatre’s performance history, and does additional service by interrogating gender issues, past and present. The book shows that writing about puppetry and women is necessary, especially as the work of women in puppetry accelerates internationally. Readers may not agree with all viewpoints; the authors themselves are far from uniform in their sentiments

Abstract:Pandit Ram Dayal Sharma (the author's father) is a nationally famous Nautanki artist, who has performed in theatre, including Ramlila and other North-Indian styles of theatre since the 1950s. He was born in the village of Samai, near Mathura in 1946. He is now based in both his village in the Braj region, and the capital Delhi. Pandit Sharma comes from a long line of actors and musicians in

efficacy of theatre and the differences between writing and style as they are made manifest in writing and directing. For Abe, “the age speaks thought people’s hearts and mouths. Artists just happen to be the receiver and transmitter” (p. 166). Anyone interested in Abe’s themes of alienation and urbanization (as seen, for example, in his 1966 play Tomodachi [Friends]) or in the questions of the shōgekijō

Abstract:The Indian epic, the Ramayan, has been kept alive in the popular imagination in India, through various textual, oral, visual, and performance forms. While Ramlila is the most popular live performance form to enact the Ramayan in the Hindi-speaking regions of North India, Ramayan Gaan is the form that prevails in the Bengali-speaking regions of West Bengal and Assam in India, and in Bangladesh

As you enter the gallery of the East-West Center during the Cosmic Characters: Wood Puppets of Asia exhibit, your attention is immediately split: on your left a nearly life-sized Japanese bunraku-style puppet is caught mid-dance. Her refined features betray no emotion and the spotlights reveal delicate gold stitches in her red kimono. The glass case that protects her from inquisitive fingers adds to

Abstract:This essay illuminates cultural resonances between two widely viewed forms of theatre over the last century in North India, Nautanki and Ramlila. It explores some of their common elements, relating to presentation style and narrative content, ones that are common to many other regional forms of Indian theatre. Throughout the twentieth century, Nautanki reigned supreme as the predominant form

Abstract:Lav-Kush Ramlila, staged at the Red Fort, has gained popularity in recent years amongst other similar dramatic re-enactments of the epic saga. Its attractiveness, owing to its casting, includes film and television personalities from entertainment industries across India. While the festivities of many Indian celebrations allow modern audiences to bear witness to an amalgam of ritual, religion

Abstract:This special issue is intended to briefly introduce the field of Ramlila, as a performance practice and as an idea. It is designed to give a taste of its geographic range and a sample of its multiple and diverse manifestations in India and the Indian diaspora. The Introduction briefly discusses the literary sources of Ramlila, its history, chief styles, and emerging trends. It also includes

Staged as a part of the “Asia in Resonance” series and presented by the Japan Foundation Asia Center, Pratthana was the result of an extended collaboration between Thai novelist Uthis Haemamool and Japanese playwright/director Okada Toshiki. Originally premiering in Bangkok, followed by a tour in Paris before being presented in Tokyo, Pratthana combines Okada’s physical actor vocabulary and strong

Abstract:An examination of Ramlila performance in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly the multinight performance by children, organized each year by the Hindu Prachar Kendra (HPK). Performances such as the HPK's annual Ramdilla demonstrate ways in which the distinction between ritual and theatre is artificial. The HPK's Ramdilla adapts conventional Ramlila elements in order to dramatize the history of

Abstract:This review-article focuses on two documentary films on the Ramayan performance tradition in India – Leela in Kheriya (2016), directed by Molly Kaushal, which focuses on a Ramlila performance in the village of Kheria Patiwara in Uttar Pradesh, where the role of Ram is played by a Muslim in the larger context of inter-community harmony, and In the Shadow of Time (2016), directed by Shankhajeet

Abstract:How should we understand performance's role in shaping gendered desires? I theorize how masculinity is managed through nō performance by examining how fraternal bonds depend upon particular forms of theatricality to thrive. In the play Dōjōji, especially, the aspiring professional actor's virtuosity relies on a feminine protagonist's riveting display of physical restraint. I consider how this

pertinent impression is his encounter with Tenjō Sajiki, which he describes as “atonce familiar, or at least recognizable, andutterly strange” (Buruma, p. 13). It is this mix which Buruma explores in depth but on a personal level; unlike other memoirs this book constantly cuts through the predominant view of “exotic Japan” in favor of intelligent selfexamination and reaction. As a result, Buruma also

Abstract:This article examines the process of "critical cultural dramaturgy" in the course of the textual domestication of two Shakespeare's plays (King Lear and Hamlet) by the Iranian theatrical group Bāzi. Mohammad Charmshir (as the playwright) and Atilā Pesyāni (as the playwright and director) have created a cultural dramaturgical kaleidoscope in which several intertexts converge during a less signaled

Oxford has been a leading publisher of influential scholarly collections on dance for decades; the 1983 anthology What is Dance? remains a goto resource for dance history educators, while the six-volume International Encyclopedia of Dance (1998, updated 2004) is the most comprehensive reference work on dance available in English to date. In 2014, OxfordUniversity Press (OUP) launched its newest project

Abstract:This article examines the transformation of Sagi, the third school of the traditional comedic performing art kyōgen, from a recognized professional form in the Edo era (1600–1868) to a community-based practice during the Meiji period (1868–1912). Through field and archival research, I will consider the challenges Sagi kyōgen faces operating outside the professional model of the institutionalized

Abstract:This article investigates the 2017 Plaza Theatre in the Black Tent, a series of performances on a makeshift stage temporarily set up in downtown Seoul, and defines its performative significance, along with Korea's sociopolitical stream of events. Examining the site specificity of Gwanghwamun Square, the location of the Black Tent, this article focuses on the communal bonds people experienced

encountering a displaced or translated culture that fluctuation is Jeri Daboo’s text Staging British South Asian Culture: Bollywood and Bhangra in British Theatre introduces its reader to the practice of analyzing culture in diasporic performance through the lens of South Asian culture on the British stage. The constant flux of cultural identity renders the process of analysis difficult in any context;

Abstract:Purulia district in West Bengal in eastern India is home to Purulia chhau, one of the three martial-arts-inspired chhau dance genres that incorporate rhythmic movements with extravagant masks and costumes. This exuberant dramatic form is primarily performed by male dancers and has been categorized as an Indian intangible cultural heritage. Based on my primary research in 2014, this report

the character Doraemon and his friend Nobita from the comic book and television series Doraemon. However, Doraemon was never popular in the United States, and these references to the characters may be confusing as they are left unexplained. Some translators do include some footnotes to explain cultural references that may be difficult for readers unfamiliar with Japanese culture, although these footnotes

Abstract:This article gives insight into why verses from the "Radheshyam Ramayan," an early-twentieth century epic poem in Hindi–Urdu by Pandit Radheshyam Kathavachak, have been so widely adapted in India's theatre of Ramlila. Through a close reading of Kathavachak's chapter/scene "Dhanuṣ-yajña" (The Bow Ritual), and its staging at one amateur Ramlila in the author's hometown of Bareilly, this article

Abstract:Drawing from the study of a ritual in South India called bhuta kola, we explicate the possible theoretical conceptualizations that can explain the aesthetic movement from the individual to the collective universal. The multi-layered nature of a socio-religious ritual performance lends itself to two main conceptual frameworks. The first is the aesthetic criterion of order and place that is

either, that Abhinavagupta’s teacher Bhatta Tota would subsequently assert, “To the degree that poetry does not approximate the character of a performance, the possibility of savoring rasa decreases” (p. 183). The playwright-poet Kalidasa had figured it out in a moment that may have been contemporaneous with the Natyashastra itself, and ahead of all of the literary theory: “The theory of drama . .

Abstract:This essay focuses on a two-fold conceptualization of theatre making pertaining to the production of Galileor Jibon (Life of Galileo, 1980), a Bengali translation of Bertolt Brecht's Leben des Galilei, by the Kolkata-based theatre group Calcutta Repertory Theatre in association with Fritz Bennewitz, a Brecht "expert" from the German Democratic Republic. The two-fold conceptualizations hinge

Abstract:Cultural memory is actively constructed through embodied and political performances. Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare, two "national poets" of unequal global stature, have recently become vehicles for British and Chinese cultural diplomacy and exchange during their quatercentenary in 2016. The culture of commemoration is a key factor in Tang's and Shakespeare's positions within world theatre

Abstract:This essay focuses on the South Korean performance group Taroo's locally-oriented aesthetics in Pansori Hamlet Project (2014) as an alternative model to the notion of "Global Shakespeare" which presupposes intercultural spectatorship as well as intercultural practice. A natural corollary of this "global" discourse is overlooking smallscale productions and verbal genres such as pansori despite

Abstract:Performing Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu is a vehicle for innovation for Shen Yili, Zhang Jun, Luo Chenxue, and their fellow actors at the Shanghai Kunqu Theatre (SKT). As my case studies of The Story of Bloody Hands (a 1986 adaptation of Macbeth), Zhang's reinterpretation of Tang's Four Dreams, and the SKT's role in the quatercentenary celebrations for Shakespeare and Tang, reveal, these encounters

Abstract:Studies of the spaces of citizenship, spaces of democracy, and political performance in public space have often focused on the importance of key sites that perform the political identities of citizens and politicians as well as the process of democracy itself. This paper argues that in the case of Singapore, contemporary theatre is the most important public space of citizenship and democracy

The opening of the Indian economy brought changes to the aesthetic practice as well as to the circulation of dance, which in turn changed the way dance is viewed, taught, and compensated. After twenty years of reality dance shows, it is certainly time that someone has looked critically at how those changes have affected Indian identity formation, and Chakravorty has done this admirably, even starting