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Shen-ti Wen-hua: Discourses on the Body in Avant-Garde Taiwanese Performance, 1980s–1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

YA-PING CHEN
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Abstract

The article explores historically and theoretically the phenomenon of shen-ti wen-hua (culture of the body) in the context of Taiwan's experimental performance in the 1980s–1990s. By highlighting different corporeal discourses in various sociopolitical contexts across time, it addresses such critical issues as the relation between the individual and the collective in the history of Taiwanese modernity, the quests for identity in art and culture, the transformation of the role of the avant-garde in aesthetic and political pursuits, and the ultimate question of the relationship between art and society from the colonial era to a contemporary world dominated by consumer culture and global capitalism. The body, with its materiality and rich semiotic possibilities, has at certain historical moments served as a potent metaphor for questioning the sociopolitical status quo and envisioning new identities and alternative power relations in Taiwanese society: the period under consideration in the article was one of those moments.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , October 2018 , pp. 272 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2019 

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References

Notes

1 Wang, , Urban Theatre and the Body (Taipei County: Tao-hsiang Publications, 1992), p. 43Google Scholar, italics added. Unless otherwise noted, the translation of all the Chinese texts is by the author. Though not acknowledged explicitly in his article, Wang's use of the term ‘revolt of the flesh’ is adopted from the legendary performance Hijikata Tatsumi and the Japanese: Revolt of the Flesh by the founder of Japanese butoh, Hijikata Tatsumi. Wang spent the years 1982–4 in Tokyo researching Japan's post-war avant-garde theatre and butoh. His thinking and writings about the body in the 1980s and 1990s were very much influenced by his knowledge of underground performance culture in Japan.

2 Wang, Urban Theatre, p. 113.

3 See Ching-lin, Huang, War, Body, Modernity (Taipei: United Daily Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Ya-ping, Chen, Enquiry into Subjectivity: Modernity, History, Taiwan Contemporary Dance (Taipei: TNUA ARTS Series, 2011)Google Scholar.

4 Ching-lin, Huang, History, Body, Nation: The Construction of the Body in Modern China, 1895–1937 (Taipei: United Daily Press, 2001), p. 48Google Scholar. The First Sino-Japanese War resulted in the cession of Taiwan, the forced opening of several seaports on the Chinese mainland and the granting of most-favoured-nation status to Japan.

5 The Taiwanese people mentioned here is a collective concept, which includes mainlanders who came after 1945, native Taiwanese of Han Chinese origin, and Taiwanese indigenous people.

6 The so-called ‘February 28th Incident’ laid the seed of tension between the Taiwanese and mainlanders for many decades and was a political taboo until the 1990s.

7 The era of ‘White Terror’ lasted from 1949 to 1991, with its most intensive period taking place from the 1950s to 1970s.

8 For discussion on min-zu wu-dao movement and its body politics see Ya-Ping, Chen, ‘Dancing the Chinese Nationalism and Anti-Communism: Minzu Wudao Movement in 1950s Taiwan’, in Jackson, Naomi and Shapiro-Phim, Toni, eds., Dance, Human Rights and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2008), pp. 34–50Google Scholar.

9 Nan Fang Shuo, ‘Seemingly at the End of the Road’ (‘Ching-shan Liao-jao Yi Wu Lu’), in Yang Tse, ed., The Uninhibited Eighties: Documenting an Era of Collective Voices (Taipei: China Times Press, 1999), pp. 20–9, here p. 23. The trajectory reflected the accumulated tension due to decades of political oppression, and the continuation of conflicts after 1987 was due to people's disappointment in the many sociopolitical problems that stayed intact after the lifting of martial law.

10 Ibid., p. 23.

11 This description of Loss of Function, No. 3 is based on the photographs and descriptive passages from Yao Jui-chung, Performance Art in Taiwan 1978–2004 (Taipei: Yuan-Liu Publishing Co. Ltd, 2005), as well as an unreleased documentary film of the performance made by Chen Chieh-Jen in 1983.

12 See Wang, Urban Theatre, p. 133; Wang Mo-lin, ‘Surrealism and Anti-order: the Spirit of Irrationality in Japanese Butoh’, Lion Art, 184 (1986), pp. 59–63.

13 Interview with Wang Mo-lin by the author, 26 June 2012, Taipei.

14 See Li Xianting, The Weight of Revolt: What Is Important Is Not Art (Taipei: Artists, 2012), pp. 23–4.

15 The title Mao-shi is a pun on Chinese literary classic Mao Poetry (also pronounced Mao-shi). Mao Poetry belongs to a series of classics revered by Confucius as the canon of literature. Tian alluded to it as a symbol for Confucianism and related dogmatic morality. The title did not in any way refer to Mao Zedong. For the script of Mao-shi see Tian Chi-yuan, Fan-Hua-Sheng-Tsi: Anthology of Scripts by the Critical Point Theatre (Taipei: The Critical Point Theatre, 2004).

16 Based on a video recording of the complete work on 24 June 2001 and excerpts of the piece on ‘The Critical Point Theatre’ from the twelve-part documentary series Little Theatre of Taiwan (Taipei: Public Broadcast Station, 2000).

17 Ah-nu, White Marguerite is a play about the legendary woman Hsieh Shüeh-hung, who was the leader of Taiwan's Communist Party from the late 1920s until 1947. She led the military resistance against KMT troops in central Taiwan in the conflicts caused by the February 28th Incident. She fled to China after being defeated by the KMT.

18 Quoted from ‘The Critical Point Theatre’ in the documentary series Little Theatre of Taiwan.

19 Tian's gay identity and HIV-positive status were disclosed publicly in 1987 when he was still a college student, which resulted in severe discrimination from his own university as well as in daily life. The experience became one of the driving forces behind his theatrical creation.

20 See Chen Kuan-hsing, Towards De-imperialization: Asia as Method (Taipei: Yuan-Liu Publishing Co. Ltd, 2006), pp. 144–5, 152.

21 See Hsiao Chung-jui, Salon de Mai and the Orient: The Development of the Modernization Movement of Chinese Fine Arts in Postwar Taiwan (1945–1970) (Taipei: Tung-ta Press, 1991).

22 See Hsu Yun-kung, In the Name of Art: Exploring Taiwan's Visual Arts from Modern to Contemporary (Taipei: Puo-ya Press, 2009).

23 The first direct election of a president did not happen until 1996. Before then, the president of the Republic of China on Taiwan was elected by the National Assembly, which was composed mainly of representatives elected from all the provinces of mainland China before 1949. The maintenance of the wan-nien kuo-tai was to perpetuate the myth that the ROC was still the legitimate ruler of the whole of China. In addition, it also ensured the continuous reign of the KMT over Taiwan since most representatives were under its control.

24 See Wang, Urban Theatre; Chung Mingder, The Taiwanese Avant-Garde: In Search of Total Art and Contemporary Taipei Culture (Taipei: Bookman Books Ltd, 1996); director Lee Yung-ping's talk in ‘Passionate Era, Uninhibited Theatre’ in the documentary series Little Theatre of Taiwan.

25 Quoted from ‘Passionate Era, Uninhibited Theatre’.

26 See Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), pp. 24–7.

27 See ibid., p. 22.

28 See Liao Hsin-tien, The Tension of Art: Taiwanese Fine Arts and the Politics of Culture (Taipei: Art & Collection Group, 2010), p. 41.

29 See ibid., pp. 52–3.

30 Quoted from ‘The U-Theatre’ in the documentary series Little Theatre of Taiwan. The Chinese character of the company's name, ‘優’, meant ‘actor’ or ‘actress’ in ancient China.

31 See Liu Chang-jang, Research on the Theory and Practice of ‘The Project of Tracing Back’ of U-Theatre (Taipei: Taipei National University of the Arts, 2007), p. 11.

32 See ibid., p. 21.

33 Che-ku is a form of folk dance drama composed of two characters, a clown and a young woman, and is often performed in religious celebrations and processions. Pa-chia-chiang, literally meaning ‘eight officers’, refers to a group of demigods who perform a form of martial art demonstration in religious processions or rituals held by Taoist temples in Taiwan. In the Ma-tsu pilgrimages, the pilgrims follow the holy palanquin of the deity Ma-tsu on foot for days, travelling from one temple to another. The routes of the Pai-sha-tun Ma-tsu pilgrimage, the one U-Theatre members participated in, are not predetermined but are dictated by the deity on the road, so the trip becomes a highly demanding task for the pilgrims in terms of physical strength and willpower.

34 Quoted in Zbigniew Osinski, ‘Grotowski Blazes the Trails: From Objective Drama to Art as Vehicle’, in Lisa Wolford and Richard Schechner, eds., The Grotowski Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 385–403, here p. 387.

35 Quoted in Liu, Research on the Theory and Practice of ‘The Project of Tracing Back’, p. 28. Throughout the Retracing Project, the terms ‘Chinese body’, ‘Taiwanese body’ and ‘Eastern body’ were referred to in different theatre productions.

36 See ibid., p. 148; ‘The U-Theatre’ in the documentary series Little Theatre of Taiwan.

37 Chung, The Taiwanese Avant-Garde, p. 183.

38 Innes, Christopher, Avant-Garde Theatre 1892–1992 (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 6Google Scholar.

39 For discussion on the ‘Eastern body aesthetic dance’ see Chen Ya-Ping, ‘Claiming of Difference: the Aesthetics and Politics of Eastern Body Aesthetic Dances, 1987–1997’, in ‘Dance History and Cultural Politics: A Study of Contemporary Dance in Taiwan, 1930s–1997’ (unpublished dissertation, 2003).

40 The founders of Tai-gu Tales, Lin Hsiu-wei, and Taipei Dance Circle, Liou Shaw-lu, were early members of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Tao Fu-lann, who founded Multi-Dimensional, was first a follower of Pina Bausch's socially engaged Tanztheater in the late 1980s and then suddenly turned to the ‘body–mind–spirit dance’ in the early 1990s.

41 See Călinescu, Matei, Five Faces of Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003; first published 1987), p. 95Google Scholar.

42 Wang, ‘Surrealism and Anti-order’, p. 161.

43 The title lingchi (凌遲) means excruciatingly prolonged torture, which was the extreme punishment inflicted upon criminals or enemies in premodern China.

44 Quoted in Yung-fen, Hu, ‘Rational Delirium, Poetic Cruelty: Seeing How Chen Chieh-jen Sees’, Modern Fine Arts, 104 (2002), pp. 50–55Google Scholar, here p. 53.