1st Edition

Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater

By Peilin Liang Copyright 2020
    172 Pages 17 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    170 Pages 17 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater, Peilin Liang develops a theory of bodily transformation.





    Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater practitioners of minoritized cultures adopt transformance as a strategy to counteract the embodied practices of ideological and economic hegemony. This book observes key Taiwanese contemporary theater practitioners at work in forging five reconceptualized bodies: the energized, the rhythmic, the ritualized, the joyous, and the (re)productive. By focusing on the development of transformance between the years of 2000–2008, a tumultuous political watershed in Taiwan’s history, the author succeeds in bridging postcolonialism and interculturalism in her conceptual framework.





    Ideal for scholars of Asian and postcolonial theater, Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater shows how transformance, rather than performance, calibrates with far greater precision and acuity the state of the body and the culture that it seeks to create.

    List of Figures  Prologue  Acknowledgements  INTRODUCTION Transformance: In Search of a Body  CHAPTER ONE Island Bodies in the Nexus of Empires  CHAPTER TWO Energized Bodies: Cultural Hybridity as a Method of Transformance  CHAPTER THREE Rhythmic Bodies: Transformance as a Postmodern Project  CHAPTER FOUR Ritualized Bodies: Transformance as an Act of Worship  CHAPTER FIVE Joyous Bodies: Transformance and the State  CHAPTER SIX (Re)productive Bodies: Transformance in Deterioration  CONCLUSION Transformance as Repair  Index

    Biography

    Peilin Liang is Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore. She is the director of A Home on the Island, a transnational Practice as Research (PaR) project in applied theater. Her work has appeared in Theatre Topics, Theatre Research International, Contemporary Theatre Review, InterAsia Cultural Studies, Performance Research, and Research in Drama Education.