Workshop
II: Focus on India and Indonesia
Presenters:
Betty Bernhard, Chair and Professor of Theatre, Pomona College
Kathy Foley, Professor of Theater Arts, University of California, Santa Cruz
Coordinator:
Karen Derris, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University
of Redlands
Friday, March 10: India Workshop
Presenter: Betty Berhard, Chair & Professor of Theatre, Pomona College8:45am Shuttle leaves hotel
9:00am Breakfast and Introduction (Hunsaker Bulldog/Och Tamale Rooms)
9:30-11:30am Theatre of India Session 1
11:30am Lunch (Orton Palm Room)
1:00-3:00pm India Session 2 (Move to Gregory 177)
3:15-5:15pm India Session 3
6-8:30pm Dinner and Performance (University Club)
8:45pm Shuttle leaves campus
Workshop Description: Participants are first familiarized with the Natyshastra, the vedic writings on the poetics of classical theater. Presenter will demonstrate the nava-rasa theory and have simple exercises for participants to experience the effects of this theoretical approach. Then, the session will focus on the Sanskrit theater traditions as a reflection of aesthetics and as a form of worship. Participants will examine and discuss the DVD recording of the training process for full Natyashastra-based productions of Shakuntala and the Little Clay Cart at Pomona College with two veteran Indian artists. The segments of interviews with students demonstrate how their participation in actual theater productions helped them learn about Indian culture through the experience of embodiment. We will also cover Bhavai, the folk theater of Gujarat as an example of how that form functioned for the society in political, cultural, and devotional ways for over seven hundred years. Key excerpts from the presenter’s own archival footage of Bhavai will be shown to demonstrate its cultural significance. In the last part of the workshop, we will study the use of theater productions as a tool for social change. It will feature the work of thirty four political women theater activists in India covering issues as diverse as female infanticide, literacy, handicapped children, and child sex workers. The presenter’s own research with these female performers is the primary material to be examined in this session, including the footage of interviews with performers and some actual performances.
Saturday, March 11: Indonesia
Presenters:
8:45am Shuttle leaves hotelKathy Foley, Professor of Theater Arts, University of California, Santa Cruz
Vicki Lewis, Assistant Professor of Theatre, University of Redlands
9:15-10:45am Teaching Resource Presentation (Vicki Lewis -- Gregory 270)
11am-12:45pm Theatre of Indonesia Session 1 (Kathy Foley – Gregory 270)
1:00pm Lunch (Hunsaker Bulldog/Och Tamale Rooms)
2:00-6:00pm Indonesia Session 2-3 (Gregory 270)
6:15pm Shuttle leaves campus – Evening free
Sunday, March 12: Concluding SessionWorkshop Description: First part of the workshop will provide a brief overview of Southeast Asian theater, and survey some of the prominent cultural themes and influences that have contributed to the formation of theater traditions of Southeast Asia. We will consider the significance of the numbers one to ten as manifested in Indonesian performance. The ideas of cosmology are reflected in dance performance as well, and become the basis of the character types that inform all types of performance. We will also consider the iconography and visual material, explore simple movement and sound exercises, and learn how these energies are related to ecology, life cycle, hierarchy and narrative structures.
We will also explore the theater’s connection to the ideological and political realms. Theater is also a significant frame for understanding traditional Indonesian Islam, as Islam came to Indonesia through the arts and the arts are being flattened into a narrower sphere by contemporary interpretations. Sufism and fundamentalism (Islamic, Hindu and Christian) as it plays out in the arts and related issues will be explored.
Finally, we will focus on the recent innovation in classical Southeast Asian theater in response to modern social, political and cultural changes. It will begin with the outline of the Mahabharata and Ramayana and then show participants how the work is molded by the dalang (puppeteer/narrator) to meet modern needs in performance. The structural importance of clowning will be considered and examples of contemporary responses to terrorism will be used as examples with peices of topeng (mask performance) and wayang (puppetry) that respond to the 2002 Bali Bomb as examples. Musical links to narrative action will be detailed.
8:45am Shuttle leaves hotel
9-11am Concluding Discussion (Bulldog/Och Tamale)
11:30am Shuttle leaves campus
