UCIPC Asian Theatre and Performance, UC Berkeley, September 22-23, 2006
ASIA BY MEANS OF PERFORMANCE
An interdisciplinary symposium on Asian performance
In September 2006, the UCIPC held a conference on Asian theatre and performance at UC Berkeley. This event, organized by Shannon Jackson with administrative help from Lynette Hunter, raised questions about the role of performance as an art practice and social form in an era of globalization. The papers investigated the impacts of Asian performance practices as we understand them historically regionally, and philosophically. Scholars, artists, and graduate students from across the state of California gathered to reflect on these issues and other central questions in the overlapping fields of Asian Studies and Performance Studies. The conference included a large number of colleagues from UC Berkeley departments interested in Asian studies, core UCIPC members, newly affiliated members, as well as eleven funded graduate students. Since the event coincided with the performances of Peony Pavilion at the Zellerbach, a number of scholars visiting the area attended the conference because of this production. Daphne Lei and Haiping Yan were directly involved in many of the University-based and public events surrounding this major tour. The conference not only raised a number of questions central to the field of International Performance and Culture but also offered UC Berkeley colleagues a fruitful way to bring together common interests. One colleague commented: Two of our PhD students attended the conference at UCB on Asian performance. They are working in the field: they are from Taiwan, with national fellowships from their country. It provided an important overview of US academic approaches to performance in the Asian diaspora.
Program
UC Berkeley, Geballe Room, Townsend Center 220 Stephens Hall
What is the role of performance as an art practice and social form in an era of globalization? How have these changes affected and been affected by Asian performance practices as we understand them historically regionally, and philosophically? Scholars, artists, and graduate students from across the state of California gather to reflect on these and other central questions in the overlapping fields of Asian Studies and Performance Studies.
Sponsored by the UC-Systemwide Multi-Campus Research Group on “International Performance and Culture” with generous assistance from the School of International and Area Studies, the South Asian Studies Center, the Center for Japanese Studies, the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the department of Rhetoric, the department of Music, and the department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Program Chair: Shannon Jackson, UC-Berkeley and MRG Co-director
Program Committee: Lynette Hunter, UC-Davis and MRG Director, Sudipto Chatterjee, UC-Berkeley, and Lauri Smith, UC-Davis
Schedule
Friday, September 22
10:15 to noon Asian Performance Research: Methodologies Across the Disciplines
- Carol Sorgenfrei, UCLA, “Are We Imposing Theoretical Imperialism?: Japanese Theorists in Western Theory”
- Benjamin Brinner, UCB, “Indonesia by Means of Performance: Ethnomusicologists’ Approaches”
- Priya Srinivasan, “Destabilizing the ‘Native’ and the ‘Foreign’: Theorizing Corporeal Hauntings of Transnational Indian Dancers in early American Modern Dance”
- Session Chair: Allison Crilly, UCI
- Respondent: Miryam Sas, UCB
Lunch Reception noon to 1:30
1:30 to 3:00
- Pheng Cheah, “Fantasies of ‘Chinese-ness’ and the Traffic in Women from Mainland China to Hong Kong in Fruit Chan’s Durian, Durian”
- Session Chair: Fei Shi, UC-Davis
- Respondent: Sue-Ellen Case, UCLA
3:30 to 5:30 Roundtable Session: “Colors in/on the Umbrella”: A Roundtable on Diversity in South-Asian American Theatre
- Sujit Saraf, Artistic Director, NAATAK
- Sambit Basu, Member, ENAD
- Vidhu Singh, Independent Theater Scholar/Director
- Session Chair, Charlotte McIvor, UCB
- Respondent and Moderator: Moderator, Sudipto Chatterjee, UCB
6pm Invited Dinner: Shannon Jackson’s home, Presenters, Designated Grad student visitors, Roundtablers, Respondents, MRG Research Core only
Saturday, September 23
9:00 to 10:30
- Haiping Yan, UCLA, “Tropes of ‘Home’: The Global Shanghai and New Asia in Performance.”
- Session Chair: Andy Gibb, UCSB
- Respondent: Colleen Lye, UCB
10:45 to 12:15 Roundtable on “‘Area-based’ Studies Debates and Performance Research”
- Session Chair: Aimée Zygmonski, UCSD
- Shannon Steen, UCB
- Sally Ness, UCR
- Suk-Young Kim, UCSB
- Sophie Volpp, UCB