Yellowface?

The goal of this class is to make us global theatre practitioners. One the best ways we can do this is by performing of producing plays from other cultures. The question that always has to be asked before a project is started is; who can perform this play? For today’s class we read Kanjincho. The question I ask is how would this play read if it was done by a typical American university?

This university, like most in the twenty-first century, prides itself on diversity. So it is very practical that in an effort to expand its ideas of theatre, said universities would want to produce, for example, a Kabuki play. We can assume that the university will have the means and money to acquire the sets, costumes, and properties to produce a Kabuki play, but would they have tradition? What I mean when I ask this question is even though an American university has the means to produce a Kabuki play does it have the same effect when the actors and design team are not trained in Kabuki like the Japanese traditionally are?

These questions bombarded my mind as I read this play because I worked make-up crew for a Kabuki play at Western Illinois University while completing my undergraduate degree. There were a number of things that I noticed about Kanjincho that I did not see in Samurai( WIU’s kabuki production).

The differences that stand out are the movement of the actors, the set, the chorus, and the ritual in starting the play. The stage directions take the reader through the ritual done by the orchestra and stage manager to signal the beginning of the play. Wiu’s production did not have this. The very precise movement of the actors was lost and it has to be assumed because they did not have the proper training. There was not chorus or orchestra which tells me that the director cut them. And lastly the set lacked the curtains and other Kabuki elements established by Kanjincho.

It may not be fair to take one random university and use it to define how any other university would approach Kabuki, but why not? American theatre programs have differences that range from subtle to drastic but are all victims of the westernized we and thinking and approaching theatre. When it comes to Kabuki in the American university, maybe it should be studied more and performed less.

Who???

In this class we have asked a number of questions about global theatre in an effort to better understand how to approach it. One of the questions we asked was who can do what? The article we read for class today was about a British man who has devoted his life to the Beijing Opera. As far as Chinese theatre and the Beijing Opera are concerned, can this man be considered a legitimate Chinese theatre artist because he is not of Chinese decent?

In this particular case the answer is a resounding yes! This man is not you every day theatre practitioner longing to find a generic way to add diversity to his craft. Ghaffar Pourazar has devoted his life to the Beijing Opera. He trained at a Beijing Opera school for five years to perfect his craft. “Pourazar spent five years undergoing punishing training at a school so dirty he describes it as a big toilet. He was decades older than the other students, and he tested his body on a daily basis, starting at dawn with unbelievably painful contortions.”

The way Pourazar approaches global theatre is a way we could all learn from. If we want to feel closer to art forms and cultures other than our own we have to find ways to get firsthand experience with those art forms. Waking up one day and deciding that you want to perform Chinese theatre is one thing, but actually taking the time to train like traditional Beijing Opera performers is another. Although it is not realistic for regular theatre artist to pack up and spend five or so years of their lives training for Beijing Opera, the idea that putting yourself in to someone else’s shoes to experience their art form the way they meant it to be experienced is priceless.

Viewpoints

The best thing about the view points workshop is that it pulls you out of your left brain. It gives you the structure to create and then there is nothing left to do than to just do it. As a beginning actor one of the major notes I received on a regular basis was that I was in my head to much and not in my body. Viewpoints allows the performer to get in her body. I liken it to being a painter but your body is the brush and the stage is the canvas. The tempo, topography, architecture and other components are the medium for the creation.
Spatial relationship and architecture have a profound impact on me. I believe I experience the most dramatic energy shifts when I change spatial relationship and architecture. I am not even really sure why it is. I just know if I put myself close to the audience, close to other actors, or away from the audience or other actors the mood shifts. The relationships shifts . How I feel about other actors and how I feel other actors feel about me are influenced through my spatial relationship.
Architecture feels the most like child’s play and that may be why I enjoy it so much. As a young one I was told countless times “Don’t stand in the chair. Don’t play on the railing. Don’t climb that pole.” Well using the viewpoint of architecture I can do all of those things and more and it is considered art. There is a lot of power through the play of architecture. One major reason I like architecture so much is because I can affect height really dramatically through changing architecture.

When Your Body is the Vessel of Art

I recently had a conversation with a modern dancer who also practices belly dancing. I asked her in what style she concentrates: Turkish or Egyptian. She stated that she basically studies the fundamentals of the different styles and has created a style that is specifically her own. She said as an American she would never be an expert on Turkish, Egyptian or any other form of belly dancing. The dancing has become something new because her American body is the medium through which this dance is created. With this understanding she has abandoned the concept of trying to emulate a specific Turkish or Egyptian style.
This conversation reminded of some points made in “Indigenous Bodies and Contested Texts” When the indigenous population took on the dramas of the Catholic plays the plays were transformed from the original intentions of the Spaniards. That transformation makes me believe that the art is truly in the hands of the performer. Within theatre hierarchy one can only hold the playwright as the highest point if that playwright’s words are being interpreted through performers with the same interpretation of the world as he. The performer of a different culture takes the text and transforms it. This transformation may be intentional or unintentional.
I believe that the merger of the different cultures’ art through the performers is the very height of creativity. A new art form that is neither old world or new world is born and this is the soul of art. No idea is ever independent of each other and so the creation of new forms from merging of cultures is a very significant phenomenon.

Rethinking Ingendismo When Cultures Clash

In Garro’s La dama boba the concept of the less sophisticated and superstitious indigenous person is confronted. When Lupe’s father mistakes the actor Francisco as a real life teacher, the initial reaction of many is of that the people of Tepan are infantile and backwards in their beliefs. In Indigenous Bodies Conested Texts it say
“Garro deftly exposes the nationalist illogic underlying indigenismo by linking it to the still unresolved question of indigenous self-representation. For the cultural emissaries in the play, the indigenous communities exist as people to be acted upon; when these people act, as does the mayor the mayor of Tepan, they may as well not exist for all the attention they get. But they are not powerless as illustrated through the figure of Lupe. “(p35)

I think La dama boba reacts to the phenomenon of when the oppressor takes a paternalistic view of the oppressed. In the indigenismo genre of literature the Indians were shown in a sympathetic light and injustices were criticized. In La dama boba the clash of the two worlds is more sharply illustrated. However the convergence of the two worlds is represented in the character of Lupe. Through Lupe’s direct access to the system of the Mexican state through Francisco she can see clearly short comings of the city and the rural world views.
As Lupe is able to live in the duality of the indigenous world view and the urban world view we see the acceptance of the various approaches to viewing the universe. The play provides a scenario where neither form is rejected or elevated. This phenomenon is important when different concepts of the world collide.

The Revolution of Suzuki:

In Takahashi Yasunari’s “Suzuki’s Work in the Context of Japanese Theatre” he discusses Suzuki’s . He states how
“Suzuki also drew much of his nourishment from the traditional popular theatre forms of Japan. No other director has learned and stolen so much from Noh and Kabuki, and certainly none has utilized so effectively the popular folk songs (enka) which have entered the mechanism of the psyche of the nonelitist Japanese populist. (Yasunari p 3).

Suzuki honored the traditions of Noh theatre and Kabuki theatre as well as the influences of Western theatre to create a new art form. I believe that this method is truly the basis for innovative theatre. I think theatre that does not acknowledge and borrow from the traditions of the artists and the legacy that artist inherits will not have a lot of resonance. This need to embrace our old customs and traditions and yet move on to the next new thing is a very big battle in America. Creative expression is very much like procreation. The genes of my most ancient ancestors are still in me and will be passed on even to my children. My point is that it is prudent for all artist who wish to be innovative to first examine and embrace the legacy of their artistic traditions.
Yasunari’s also states that Suzuki also subversively undermined the priority of the written text at the top of the theatrical pyramid. Yasunari asserts that Suzuki “triumphantly succeeded in transferring the priority from the text to the actor.” (Yasunari p3) With the power in the actor a revolution has taken place with Suzuki. This revolution embraces the past but also acknowledges that the power for the play is within the hands of the actor.

Comments on what makes a play an African American Play

When Lorraine Hansberry commented on her masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun she commented that her play was an American story as opposed to an African American story. The basis for this assertion rests in the fact that most of the family in this play could have been Italian, Polish or Spanish and the play still would have worked. There is something distinctly American about the struggle for upward mobility. The problem I have with this assert is the implication that the African American experience is divorced from the American experience. This idea leads to the question of what makes art specifically African American.
Bill T Jones stated that no matter the form or style of the art he does it is black art because the artist is black. There is a universal language in art that does allow forms and styles to be adopted by people other than those who originated it. This story about an American family struggle to get ahead is told through realism. The style of realism may be why the play was so well received. If the same story had been told through the style of Yoruba performance ritual or Noh theatre would it have worked for American audiences? In the 1950s the play probably would not have been as well received or well understood had it been told in a style deemed more “ethnic”. I contend that Lorraine Hansberry choice to tell this story through realism is very justified.
First off, what is an African American style? Not all African Americans are Yoruba descendents so that is not our style. Also, let us not deny the affect the African American culture has had on the larger culture as a whole. Therefore, any American style or story is by its very nature part African American due to African American influence in this culture.
Lorraine Hansberry had no need to describe her story as an “American” story. Any African American story will be an American story. Most of the struggles of African Americans have their roots in class struggles which cross race lines.