Conference 'Audiences, Patrons and Performers in the Performing Arts of Asia' 
                                                                                    Leiden, the Netherlands
                                                                                       23-27 August 2000 

   Call for Papers 

     Introduction 
     General Theme 
     Panels & Workshop 
        1.Panel: Hybrid-popular theatres in Asia - Hanne de Bruin 
        2.Panel: Art criticism - Wim van Zanten 
        3.Panel: 'Liveness' - Matthew Cohen 
        4.Panel: TheAsian diaspora - Hae-Kyung Um 
        5.Workshop: The Creative Process in Folk Music and Musical Ritual in                     Asia - Frank Kouwenhoven 
     Abstracts 

Introduction

From 23 to 27 August 2000, Leiden University, the Netherlands, hosts the conference 'Audiences, Patrons and Performers in the Performing Arts of Asia', a joint initiative of the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research (CHIME) and the Department of Cultural and Social Studies, Leiden University. For CHIME this event will serve as the 6th annual CHIME conference. 

General theme

In this conference we look beyond performance as a 'self-contained act' towards what performance essentially constitutes: an on-going and dynamic interaction with the environment. To reverse what is perhaps the most habitual direction of our viewing, we e mphasise the role of the environment: the audiences, the patrons who protect the arts, the people who organise and support, politically or otherwise, the arts: the theme at the heart of this conference is how they influence performances and performers, an d are in turn influenced by
them. Whatever singers, storytellers, puppeteers, actors, or musicians in Asia have on offer for their audiences - in terms of entertainment, ritual, or re-enactment of social relationships and dilemmas - for the viability of t heir art they depend on more than just one-way communication with the environment. How do they cope with the many different - often contradictory - voices and expectations that emerge from different groups in society, each with their own norms and values? 

Panels and Workshop

   1.Panel: Hybrid-popular theatres in Asia - Hanne de Bruin 
   2.Panel: Art criticism - Wim van Zanten 
   3.Panel: 'Liveness' - Matthew Cohen 
   4.Panel: TheAsian diaspora - Hae-Kyung Um 
   5.Workshop: The Creative Process in Folk Music and Musical Ritual in Asia -           Frank Kouwenhoven 

1. Panel: Hybrid-popular theatres in Asia
Convenor: Dr. Hanne de Bruin 
The second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century saw the emergence and rise to success of novel forms of theatre in many parts of South and Southeast Asia. These new theatre forms were the result of direct and indirect contacts between indigenous expressive genres and Western, melodramatic performance conventions and proscenium stage techniques, which were 'imported' into Asia during the colonial time. Tentatively, we will refer to these novel forms as hybrid-popular th eatres.
The emergence and rise to popularity of the hybrid-popular theatres appears to have been stimulated by the demand of local audiences for 'novelty'. In India, they were run as commercial enterprises. For their revenues the hybrid-popular theatres depended on the new convention of ticket sales and on the exploitation of a newly emerging 'performance market'. Their grounding in a commercial base
distinguished them from earlier theatres, which depended on community or royal patronage.

Theatrical companies from Bombay, Pune, and Calcutta travelled throughout the Indian subcontinent and beyond to Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia and Indonesia, where they appear to have greatly influenced the local theatre scene. These theatres were referred to as the 'Parsi companies'. The success of these touring commercial theatre companies must have inspired local performers to begin their own companies, giving rise to a great number of hybrid-popular theatres in South and Southeast Asia. 

The panel invites contributions on the contemporary and the historical dimensions of the scores of theatres of India, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and possibly other countries of the region that would fit into the description
of hybrid-popular theatre. Contributions may address the following questions: 

(1) What were/are the specific performance features which made/make these genres             so attractive to local audiences?
(2) Who were/are these audiences? 
(3) Who were/are the artistic exponents of these genres? 
(4) What were/are the economic patronage systems enabling the viability and             mobility of theatre companies representing these genres? 
(5) What exactly involved the processes of imitation, translation and adaptation             of dramatic material and practices from one into another regional or             national culture? 
(6) What is the present status of these theatres? 


2. Panel: Art criticism
Convenor: Dr.Wim van Zanten
Journalists of national and regional media report about performances in Asia. Critical commentary also takes place by oral
transmission. As art criticism is important for understanding the interaction between audiences, patrons and performers, we welcome
contributions that address this theme. 

3. Panel: 'Liveness'
Convenor: Dr. Matthew Cohen
Spectators and performing artists throughout most of Asia are living in an era in which music, theatre, and dance are encountered more frequently in mediated versions on television, radio, CD, or audiocassette than in live versions. The end of the twentieth-century ushers in romanticisation and nostalgia for imagined pasts, when storytellers told their tales in every teahouse and intelligentsia quoted classical theatrical tropes with fluency acquired from years of spectating. 'Liveness' is simulated on re cordings and broadcasts, as a
value added and not as an actual reflection of performance's spontaneity. What is the status of performance in Asia today? What changes have come about in performative practices due to the increasing imbrication of Asian cult ural producers, patrons, and consumers in global and local mediascapes? 

4. Panel: The Asian diaspora
Convenor: Dr. Hae-Kyung Um
All the social and political forces that give shape to the identity, social life and national context of the Asian diaspora throughout the world are reflected in the practice of their performing arts. In this panel different Asian migrant communities from across the globe will be open to examination in an effort to explore how their performing arts are used to 'define' and 'recreate' these transnational communities.

In the milieu of the transplanted performing arts audiences, patrons and performers play a decisive role in the mediation of dominant national political and social forces, on the one hand, and the individual and shared identity of the diaspora, on the other hand. These forces are to be found within these migrant communities, in the host countr y and in the distant 'homeland'. As mediators of these dynamics audiences, patrons and performers both respond to and are manipulated by these various social and political currents. The
outcome of this international 'sociology of performance' generates new aesthetics and artistic endeavors appropriate to their time and place. This panel will explore all these facets of human creativity produced by interacting audiences, patrons and performers in an effort to better understand the cultural realities of the Asian diaspora in the post-modern context of globalisation.

Topics that might be addressed by participants could include: 

    -The role of geo-political and economic changes and international politics                     on artistic outcomes. 
    -Cultural policies of the host country and home country. 
    -Community boundaries and power relationships between the given Asian                     diaspora community, their host country and their effects
     on performance. 
    -The triadic relationships between the host country, the home country and                the globally dispersed Asian diaspora communities. 
    -The role of education from community, to host state, to home country. 
    -The role of the mass media and modern technologies. 
    -The reconstruction, expression and consumption of ethnic and social                identity through the medium of performing arts. 
    -The preservation and reconstruction of style, genre, instruments etc. as an                element of national identity in the performing arts. 
    -The accommodation and integration of the culture of the host country in                performing arts of the diaspora. 
    -The different types of audiences and patrons, their expectations and                  influences on performing arts of the diaspora. 
    -The affects of the generations and social success on cultural contact and                  change in performing arts. 

5. Workshop: The Creative Process in Folk Music and Musical Ritual in Asia
Convenor: Frank Kouwenhoven
Numerous studies on the subject of creativity have been carried out in the fields of (ethno-)musicology, anthropology and psychology,
but there has been limited exchange between these fields. Few attempts have been made to formulate a shared research poli cy and to bring together existing bodies of knowledge and theory. This workshop aims at bringing together specialists from various disciplines for an in-depth perspective on creativity in Asian folk music and ritual. From the pivotal studies of Clifford Geertz onwards, there has been a wealth of anthropological studies on change and innovation in ritual and other areas of performance. The actual mechanisms involved remain difficult to grasp, and key moments of change are rarely recorded in the field. Musicological studies from Bartók and Kodaly onwards attest to the changeability of rural folk music, though the emphasis is on overall aspects of change rather than on tracking the responsible mechanisms and actual proce sses at work. Ethnomusicological theories tend to stress communal processes (Brailoiu) or, by contrast, the input of individuals (e.g. Blacking), a debate which mirrors the long-standing controversy in the field of history about the role of individuals pitted against the role of mass movements and broader social phenomena in shaping the course of history. Important clues in the realm of cognitive research and evolutionary perspectives have been offered by psychologists, anthropologists or music researcher s like Howard Gardner, John Sloboda, David Hargreaves, Eric F. Clarke, Ian Cross, Adam Kuper and others. Creative aspects of performance are particularly intriguing as a field of study in many Asian genres, where individuality among performers is often underplayed or difficult to pinpoint, and where there is major (ideological) emphasis on faithful adherence to tradition. Music scholars from Anderson Sutton to Trimillos, from Schimmelpenninck and Kouwenhoven to Canzio and Tsao Pen-yeh have studied in detail processes of change and variation in Asian folk ritual and music. 

The present workshop is aimed to address the following
theoretical issues in particular:

1) Who are the real actors in the processes of change?
2) How do they manage to bring about changes?
3) How are new elements (texts, musical properties, bodily movements etc.)          consolidated in a given tradition?
4) What is the role of audiences and other assumed bystanders in these processes          of change and consolidation?
5) What accounts for the remarkable variety or - in a contrasting situation -             the remarkable sobriety of materials involved in certain musical genres and       ritual traditions in East Asia? (I.e. what affects changes in the size          and basic nature of a repertoi re?)

For this semi-closed workshop participants will be asked to prepare draft manuscripts of papers which will be circulated in advance. In the workshop presenters will be allowed ten or fifteen minute slots for summaries of their findings, after which group discussion is initiated.

Depending on the nature of the final programme related papers will be grouped together to address related genres or related research issues. Discussions will be recorded and a (partial) transcript may be included in the final proceedings. Revised papers w ill be compiled in a special CHIME publication (2001). We expect to limit participation to a group of 20 to 25 scholars (some of whom will be specifically invited). Selection co-depends on personal availability and on the thematic compatibility of paper p roposals submitted to the programme committee. The meeting is semi-closed, i.e. participation in the discussion is limited to the 20 to 25 participants; others who are interested can join the meeting as listeners. 

Abstracts

Abstracts should consist of 200-300 words; the deadline is the 1st March 2000. You may enter your proposal in any one of the listed
panels and workshop. Please indicate the equipment you would like to use for your presentation.

We welcome abstracts sent before the deadline; you will be informed within about a month whether the abstract has been accepted or
not. 

Abstracts to be sent to address shown below.