Eugene van Erven

The playful revolution : theatre and liberation in Asia

Preface I. Revolution, Freedom, and Theatre II. Building Stages of People Power: The Philippines Educational Theater Association III. Inside the Philippine Theatre of Liberation Network IV. Resistance Theatre in South Korea: Above and Underground V. The Factionalized Indian Theatre of Liberation VI. Killed in Action: Safdar HashmiOs Street Theatre in Delhi VII. Of Stages and Mosques: The Irresistible Rise of PakistanOs Political Theatre VIII. Beyond the Shadows of Wayang: Theatre of Liberation in Indonesia IX. Theatre of Liberation Experiments in Thailand X. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Taking to the streets: Dutch community theatre goes site-specific

Dutch participatory community-based theatre has thus far been largely text-based and quite apprehensive of abstract site-specific performance, which it regarded as the product of ‘outsider gazing’ and exploitative of local residents. Quite recently, the two veteran Dutch community-based companies Stut and RWT were forced by extraordinary circumstances to work on site in the working-class neighbourhoods of Ondiep in Utrecht and Heijplaat in Rotterdam. Almost coincidentally they discovered the charm and unsuspected extratextual potential of working on site. Drawing on the work of Mike Pearson and some philosophical and sociological considerations of site and place, this article seeks to demonstrate that Stuts and RWTs misgivings are at least partially unwarranted. Based on these writings, place (as space made meaningful by human actions) seems to be at least as valuable a starting point for performance making as the stories of people who live there, tales which were born on site to begin with. By giving t...Dutch participatory community-based theatre has thus far been largely text-based and quite apprehensive of abstract site-specific performance, which it regarded as the product of ‘outsider gazing’ and exploitative of local residents. Quite recently, the two veteran Dutch community-based companies Stut and RWT were forced by extraordinary circumstances to work on site in the working-class neighbourhoods of Ondiep in Utrecht and Heijplaat in Rotterdam. Almost coincidentally they discovered the charm and unsuspected extratextual potential of working on site. Drawing on the work of Mike Pearson and some philosophical and sociological considerations of site and place, this article seeks to demonstrate that Stuts and RWTs misgivings are at least partially unwarranted. Based on these writings, place (as space made meaningful by human actions) seems to be at least as valuable a starting point for performance making as the stories of people who live there, tales which were born on site to begin with. By giving the aesthetic potential of site equal weight as the narrative reflections of community residents, which community-based theatre has thus far taken as its sole starting point, the resulting site-specific performances may well become even more powerful than the accidental productions in Ondiep and Heijplaat already were. As long as they continue to involve their participants in artistic decisions, community-based theatre makers have little reason to fear that they will alienate them and the theory and practice of site-specific performance artists like Mike Pearson and others may contain more valuable insights than they seem to think.

Resistance Theatre in South Korea: Above and Underground

Ed. Note: Since the authors visit to Korea in November and December 1986, there have been important political events not anticipated by this article. Violent street protestsfor democratic changeforced the government to announce the first election in 16 years. The 17 December 1987 election was won by former president Chun Doohwans hand-picked successor Roh Tae Woo, who, after 85 percent of the vote had been counted, had 36.5 percent of the vote. The two rival leaders of the divided opposition were reported to have won a combined total of 53 percent of the vote (Haberman 1987:1). The opposition charged widespread fraud in the election and continued their protests. We do not know for sure, but we assume that political theatre such as that described by van Erven continues to animate the Korean scene. We plan a follow-up report covering postelection changes and protest performance during the Summer 1988 Olympics.

Towards a New Cutting Edge: Where Avantgarde Meets Community Art

A cursory look at different examples of activist and community-based performances in Singapore, Colombia, and more detailed analyses of two recent participatory theatre productions in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands reveal that models that distinguish community art from avantgarde art in the East and the West resist categorization.

Beyond the Shadows of Wayang: Liberation Theatre in Indonesia

Outside its ‘classic’ forms, little is known in the West about the theatre of Indonesia. The colonial ‘heritage’ proved largely sterile, and the more fruitful recent developments of the past few decades have been dominated by attempts to integrate the indigenous tradition with contemporary problems and needs. Eugene van Erven has spent several years exploring new theatrical movements and activities in the Pacific region, and earlier results of his studies appeared in NTQ 10 (1987), on the Peoples Theatre Network of the Philippines. Here, he introduces the work of the two leading theatre-of-liberation companies in Indonesia, Teater Arena and Teater Dinasti, and analyzes their contrasting approaches to the integration of ‘theatre-of-liberation’ techniques with distinctively Indonesian social, religious, and theatrical traditions. Eugene van Erven also contributed a study of recent political theatre in Spain to NTQ 13 (1988), and has recently taken up a post lecturing in English at the University of Utrecht.

To Be Dutch or Not to Be Turkish, that Is the Question, or, How to Measure the Reception of a Community-Based Play about Living between Cultures.

In this article, the authors experiment with an interdisicplinary, partly empirical investigation into the reception of a community-based theatre production created by three generations of Turkish migrants in the Netherlands. Although community arts has been experiencing a boom of sorts in the Netherlands and local funding agents increasingly call for evidence, very little empirical research has been done in the low countries so far. Prompted by the assumption that community-based theatre has a stronger effect on spectators who are peers of participant-performers than on relative outsiders, the researchers explore the possibilities and drawbacks of two different kinds of measuring reception of this particular community play. In the first, one of the researchers returned to respondents one year after they first saw the play to verify what impact, if any, still remains. In the second, another more psychologically inclined researcher attempted to find out how Turkish and non-Turkish spectators identified differently with particular characters in the play. These combined investigations lead the authors to conclude that the play was relatively effective in causing (inter-)cultural identification processes and sustained (inter-)cultural learning and that in all this there was a marked difference between Turkish and non-Turkish audiences. They also realise their approach is far from fool proof and call for further fine-tuning instruments for reliably measuring reception and participation in community arts projects.

Theatre of Liberation in Action: the People's Theatre Network of the Philippines

Our inclusion in NTQ5 of a piece by the priest-playwright Karl Gaspar, recording his experiences of creating drama in a Philippine prison-camp, coincided with the overthrow of the Marcos regime – a revolution in whose preparation and support. Eugene van Erven now argues, the theatre played a significant part. In the following article, he describes the organization and work of the Philippine Educational Theatre Association – PETA for short – from its creation in the early seventies, to the fully-established network of companies and activities of the present day, and discusses its future role in a society not yet certain of the success of its revolution. Eugene van Erven is currently involved in a long-term project researching liberation theatre in the Third World, funded at present by his postdoctoral research fellowship in the Drama Studies Programme of the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His earlier publications have been in the field of contemporary western European political theatre, on which subject he was awarded his doctorate from Vanderbilt University. Tennessee.