Women's Intercultural Performance

238 Pages·2000·5.66 MB·English

by  Julie Holledge

Women’s Intercultural
Performance
Women’s Intercultural Performance explores contemporary feminist performance
in the contexts of current intercultural practices, theories, and debates. It is
the first in-depth examination of contemporary intercultural performance
by women around the world.
In this study, Holledge and Tompkins raise major questions about the
relationship between politics and aesthetics, the transmission of culturally
specific identity spaces, the sexually and culturally differentiated female
body in performance, and the commodification of this body within the
global marketplace. In analysing these questions the book draws on mate-
rial from the early years of the twentieth century to the 1990s and from the
work of artists in many countries – Ghana, South Africa, Algeria, Iran,
Great Britain, Argentina, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, and Korea.
While this study is still predicated on the existence of cultural and sexual
borders, it acknowledges that these borders are constantly shifting. Women’s
Intercultural Performance is a fascinating analysis of cultural production and
exchange and is essential reading for anyone studying or interested in
women’s performance.
Julie Holledge is Professor of Drama and Director of the Drama Centre at
the Flinders University of South Australia. She is the author of Innocent
Flowers: Women in Edwardian Theatre and has worked in the theatre as a
director, actor, and dramaturg.
Joanne Tompkins teaches at the University of Queensland. She is a co-
editor of Modern Drama and has published on postcolonial, multicultural,
and intercultural theatre. She is the co-author of Post-colonial Drama with
Helen Gilbert.

Women’s Intercultural
Performance
Julie Holledge and
Joanne Tompkins
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 2000 Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Holledge, Julie
Women’s intercultural performance / Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women in the performing arts. 2. Rites and ceremonies. 3. Intercultural communication. I. Tompkins, Joanne.
II. Title.
PN1590.W64 H65 2000
791´.082–dc21
99–089005
ISBN 0–415–17378–7 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–17379–5 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13665-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17941-2 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
List of plates vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: culture, feminism, theatre 1
1 Narrative trajectories: A Doll’s House and Antigone 18
2 Ritual translocations: Kim Kum hwa and
Warlpiri women 56
3 Layering space: staging and remembering ‘home’ 87
4 Intercultural bodies: meetings in the flesh 110
5 Intercultural markets: the female body and
censorship 151
Conclusion 176
Notes 184
References 202
Index 218

Plates
1 The Seito Collective, 1912 26
2 Matsui Sumako as Nora in the Shimamura Hogetsu
production of A Doll’s House at Bungei Kyokai Shenjyo
in Waseda, Japan, 1911 29
3 Lan Ping (Jiang Qing) as Nora in Zhang Min’s 1935
production of A Doll’s House, Shanghai 35
4 Niki Karimi in Sara, 1994, directed by Dariush
Mehrjui 38
5 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Argentina, 1999 48
6 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Argentina, 1999 49
7 The Korean shaman, Kim Kum hwa, 1994 66
8 Warlpiri women painting up for performance, 1998 79
9 Top End Girls, Adelaide, 1994 116
10 Costume designs from Masterkey, Adelaide, 1998 124
11 Gone with the Wind, Takarazuka Revue, Kobe, 1988 131
12 Tomiko Takai in Nobana No Tsuyu, Adelaide, 1999 141
13 Pol Pelletier in Joie, Montréal, Canada, 1993 147
14 The 1998 Telstra Adelaide Festival Poster 168
Acknowledgements
Various funding bodies have provided us with the means to complete this
project. We are indebted to the Australian Research Council, University of
Queensland New Staff Grant fund, and the Research Committee of the
Faculty of Education, Humanities, Theology and Law at Flinders Univer-
sity. We would also like to acknowledge the colleagues in our respective
departments for their support throughout the project.
We have been particularly fortunate to have had such a talented and
culturally diverse group of research assistants, including Monica Farias, Marilie
Fernandez, Mary Ann Hunter, Rebecca Lawson, Li Jiaojiao, Jane McGrory,
Yoko Nemoto, Anne Thompson, and Christine Watson. Particularly warm
thanks go to Tseen Khoo, Adele Chynoweth, Alice Parkinson, and Anna
Johnston.
A project as broad as this inevitably requires assistance with translation
from a variety of languages, namely Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Korean,
Warlpiri, Tagalog, and French. In addition to the research assistants who
worked on this project, we would like to thank the following professional
translators: Sabina Chang, Emiko Mayer, Jennifer Hargreaves Nampijinpa,
Kay Ross Napaljarri, and Elizabeth Ross Nungarrayi.
Others who provided various types of adminstrative help include Kate
Ferry, Noel Ferry, Michael Harries of the Yuendumu School, Jackie Hayvice,
Annette Henderson, Li Ying Ning, and Carmel O’Shannessey of the
Lajamanu School.
We would like to thank the following people for providing us with
feedback and/or assistance at various points in the project: Frances Bonner,
Lynne Bradley, Rustom Bharucha, Lee Cataldi, Hyun Chang, Catherine
Fenn, John Frow, Miriam Lo, Sue Magarey, Nima Naghibi, Paul Newman,
Dimitri Poulos, Suh Kwang Seok, Sue Sheridan, Peta Tait, and Chong Zhou.
Acknowledgements ix
Practitioners, artists, and arts administrators who have assisted us include:
Michiko Aoki, Robyn Archer, Australian Performing Arts (APA), Rob
Brookman, Venetia Gillot, Nicholas Heyward, Kim Kum hwa, Mary Moore,
Ian Scobie, and Tomiko Takai.
Finally, we would like to thank Talia Rodgers for being a marvellously
supportive and insightful editor, and Mary Moore and Alan Lawson for
catering and comic relief.
The authors and publishers would like to thank the following for permis-
sion to reproduce copyright material: Waseda University Theatre Library
for Plates 1 and 2; Ross Terrill for Plate 3; Dariush Mehrjui and Hashem
Seifi for Plate 4; Lucila Quieto for Plate 5; Clara Rosson for Plate 6; Lisa
Tomasetti and the Third International Women Playwrights’ Conference for
Plate 7; Kate Ferry and Dolly Daniels Nampijinpa for Plate 8; Venetia Gillot
for Plate 9; Mary Moore for Plate 10; Takarazuka Revue for Plate 11; David
Wilson for Plate 12; Fabienne Sallin for Plate 13; and the Adelaide Festival
for Plate 14.