Asian and African Theatre in Higher Education

Date: 13 Feb 08
Venue: Bob Kayleigh Studio Theatre, Bulmershe Court
Host institution: University of Reading

The aim of this workshop was to gather together HE practitioners and teachers from different academic disciplines (such as dance, drama and linguistics) to discuss the integration of non-Western techniques, philosophies and principles into the HE curriculum. The event sought to provide an opportunity for the sharing of teaching pedagogies and a forum for the discussion of methodological concerns, such as:

Introducing the day, Ashley Thorpe, (Lecturer in Theatre, Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading), outlined the aims of the day, bringing together a group from universities across the UK and some international representatives, teaching non-Western practices to share ideas, teaching and research.

The programme included presentations from different geographies and contexts, non-Western practices in both dance and drama.

Ashley teaches a traditional form of Chinese theatre, both the theoretical and practical aspects of the form, and was interested in comparing experiences, successes and problems with colleagues teaching non-Western traditions of performance, hoping that the day would allow delegates to discuss a range of pedagogical issues and concerns.

Why teach non-Western performance in Higher Education?
(Ashley Thorpe Lecturer in Theatre, University of Reading)

Ashley described two courses that he has been teaching recently. From 2002-4 he had taught a course on 'Eastern Dance Drama', which was a 15 week module including a variety of Asian forms. The practical aspect of the course used Asian forms to incorporate British Sign Language into performances for integrated audiences. Ashley now teaches on a year long module on 'Traditional and Modern Chinese Drama'.

Ashley then went on to discuss some issues and questions that had arisen from teaching these two courses that he hoped would be taken up during the course of the day.

On the 'Eastern Dance Drama' course, Ashley felt that the students had benefited from learning about a new theatre language, which had helped them to recognize the conventionality of stage language and the relationship between theatrical signs and deaf signs. The students had to make a successful piece of theatre that worked for both deaf and non-deaf audiences, requiring them to think about attention to detail in movement.

While this course allowed students to experience a range of Asian forms, the very limited amount of time available to work with them meant that their understanding of the forms could be partial and de-contextualised. Ashley was also wary of the image of Asia conveyed to students - the time factor could lead to an emphasis on the exotic and their approach could be implicitly 'orientalised'.

The 'Traditional and Modern Chinese Drama' course allows students to be taught Chinese theatre at a much deeper level - over 3 terms. This additional time allowed Ashley to aim to find pedagogies that addressed the issues arising from the previous course.

This course is still very demanding for students unfamiliar with China, in a department that doesn't have a tradition of teaching non-Western theatre. Nonetheless, the course opens the eyes of students; the exposure to different traditions enriches their learning experience. In comparison with Chinese teaching methodologies, there is still too little time and a risk of orientalisation and misinterpretation - how can a balance be achieved between the need for a broad education in a number of theatre subjects with the often specialised training of some traditional non-western forms? Today's workshop aimed to consider approaches to this in different geographies and contexts.

In response to questions from delegates, Ashley discussed the response of his students to these courses. He had been quite surprised how little awareness students had of non-Western traditions when starting the courses, but had generally had a very positive reaction from the students who completed the courses - some had gone on to learn Chinese.

Ashley also felt that students had made useful connections with other courses they had studied. They had started the course with a very closed idea of what theatre was and they had been opened to exploring other forms in the third year.

Ashley had found that his students didn't enjoy studying the historical context as much as working with the form. He had used visual tools, film and documentaries of the revolutionary era, to allow students to learn about history through the media of film and television that they were at the department to study.

On the issue of assessment and evaluation of student work, this is not done through 'faithfulness' to tradition, instead it focuses on students' creative work within a convention - they don't need scenery, there is more focus on use of the body, on clarity in performance to judge the success of the performance in it's own right. The issue of 'where it comes from' is covered in an accompanying documentation exercise - a report that allows students to critically analyze the decision making process and use of sources.

The use of Asian forms of bodymind training with performance arts students in Higher Education
(Jerri Daboo Department of Drama, University of Exeter)

Jerri uses Asian forms of bodymind training with performance arts students at Exeter. She is also part of the team working on the British Asian Theatre Project which is a four year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that seeks to document the history of South Asians on the British stage - companies, practitioners and community arts.

Jerri teaches on research based options and performance based modules that both have Asian elements.

Jerri showed a brief excerpt from a DVD which accompanies the forthcoming book by Prof. Phillip Zarrilli, Professor of Drama at Exeter, The Psychophysical Actor at Work: a post-Stanislavskian Approach, on his own method and process of training actors/performers, which is psychophysical process combining yoga and the Asian martial arts. Jerri explained the principles of Philip's work, using aspects of Asian forms in an accessible and relevant method of actor training.

Jerri has worked with Philip for several years and completed a Ph.D. on applying Buddhist techniques to the work of Russian theatre practitioner Michael Chekhov (1891-1955), which she now uses in her own teaching within the department.

Jerri discussed some of the issues that have arisen from using these approaches in her teaching:

Jerri concluded by describing how she approached these issues by an emphasis on personal development through work, on the principles underlying the forms rather than their outer aspects, assessed in the quality of performance work.

Beyond the Safari park: making African theatre meaningful in a UK university
(Prof. Jane Plastow Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds)

Jane began by providing some brief background about Leeds University, where 'world' theatre has been taught for 40 years. It has now become an accepted part of the programme and funding is available to bring outside theatre companies into the department. The African theatre course takes 24 undergraduate students per year.

Jane then discussed some issues and concerns from her experiences of teaching at Leeds:

Jane then concluded with a demonstration of her approach in an excerpt from a DVD of the Encounters with Africa outreach project, in association with the Leeds Centre for African Studies, which brought together theatre professionals, students and young people from a very multi-cultural school to devise a play exploring issues of 'global citizenship', being African in Leeds and of Europeans going to Africa.

Jane was then joined by Jerri Daboo in a joint discussion of delegate’s questions. Some issues raised were:

Re-conceptualizing Asian Performing Arts Pedagogy in the Age of Globalization
(Avanthi Meduri Faculty of Dance, Roehampton University)

Avanthi is a professional dancer and performance studies scholar and teacher, convenor of the new M.A. in South Asian Dance Studies at Roehampton.

Avanthi's talk focused on traditional Asian pedagogy in UK HE, how Asian dance has been socially and culturally constructed, interpreted and taught.

Asian dance has been in a state of transition since the 1980s and changing to meet the needs of higher education in the US and UK.

Before this, it had been 'othered' as something alien to Western traditions. In India forms like Bharatanatyam are strongly linked to devotion and ritual.

In the 1980s choreographers began to take new approaches to Asian forms, or to be more precise, the versions of the traditional forms which had been revived by Indian nationalists in the 1930s. As part of this process Indian dance forms were re-named as 'South Asian Dance' forms by the Arts Council, Western companies and artists. This label emerged as a funding category for these now increasingly institutionalised 'South Asian' forms.

Practitioners like Akram Khan tried to fit classical forms in a kind of conversation with Western idioms to meet the criteria set by the Arts Council. In doing so, they lost many important aspects of the form - costume, gesture, spiritual significance.

Avanthi was a professional dancer in India during this time of transition, moving on to the department of Performance Studies at NYU, experiencing the different discourses in the United States - Kathakali and Bharatanatyam were seen from a different perspective in new academic paradigms that hybridised, transnationalised, de-contextualised them in post-modern models.

At NYU Avanthi taught modules on interculturalism before being appointed at Roehampton in 2005, where there are five M.A.s including one in South Asian Dance Studies. On this M.A. the approach to the Asian forms is similar to that in the United States, but with additional, post-colonial perspectives. Students are encouraged to consider a range of conceptual frameworks and approaches to traditional forms and to study how the forms are institutionalised in different contexts in modules like 'global modernaties', looking at how national forms have moved beyond local boundaries to become national and transnational forms in a global world of diasporas.

The B.A. degree uses similar frameworks to study Indian dance, but undergraduates are more resistant to considering cultural specifity. Avanthi asked whether this reluctance might be generational - the 80s generation are much more interested in popular culture and technique. Indian forms could only be mainstreamed through Bollywood and Banghra, popular culture and a focus on technique.

Avanthi concluded by arguing that we have to deal directly with the question of modernity in Asian theatre practice and diasporic research in the arts - Asian modules have to use approaches that speak to the current generation of students to become more mainstream in UK HE.

Filling Up Time and Space: African Theatre in the British University Curriculum
(Osita Okagbue Drama Department, Goldsmiths, University of London)

Osita's presentation was based on his own experience of teaching African theatre in two universities.

The first course Osita taught was in 'Cross Cultural Studies in Performance' at Plymouth. His appointment for this post had not been to teach African theatre, but something 'different' that would expose students to new approaches. His teaching was not specifically African.

Osita was subsequently asked to offer an African Theatre module and was amazed to have 12 students in his first year. This was essentially a practice based course, rather than text based, allowing students to explore the concept of 'What is African Theatre?'

Now at Goldsmith's, Osita teaches courses on 'African Theatre History' and 'Postcolonial Theatre'. Numbers on the postcolonial course were initially low but higher for the African Theatre course, and the African course has consistently recruited higher numbers, demonstrating that there is a strong demand for the subject in HE. Students seem to be attracted to it for a wide variety of reasons and bring a range of their own experiences into it.

Osita concluded by suggesting these courses can expand the horizons of study and provide opportunities for students to make theatre that's different and involves different types of mental and physical engagement.

Osita is now working on setting up an M.A. in 'Contemporary African Theatre Performance' to meet the demand from students who want to take the subject further.

Exoticism, Appropriation and Cultural Internationalism: Asian Performing Arts in the Academy
(Matthew Cohen Royal Holloway, University of London)

Matthew began his presentation with a brief discussion of some questions raised in a recent article by Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, Professor of Theatre at UCLA, 'The State of Asian Theatre Studies in the American Academy' Theatre Survey 47:2 (November 2006), considering the role of Asian theatre in higher education in the United States.

Matthew then summarised some key differences that students encounter when studying Asian theatre:

Matthew then went on to discuss some particular issues he has encountered while teaching Asian theatre at Glasgow and now at Royal Holloway, University of London:

Matthew concluded by considering some possible models for teaching Asian theatre:

Plenary: Where do we go from here?
(Ashley Thorpe Lecturer in Theatre, University of Reading)

Ashley led the discussion on how to take the issues raised by the workshop forward. Topics that were discussed included:

Resources

'To learn through the body: teaching Asian forms of training and performance in higher education', Studies in Theatre and Performance (vol. 29, no. 2) edited by Ashley Thorpe (Lecturer in Theatre, University of Reading) and Jerri Daboo (Lecturer in Drama, University of Exeter).