Where are the people?：People’s theater in Inter-Asian Societies

　　At That Time, the Audience Really Stood Up.

　　In this evening, theater practitioners initiated the conversation with physical action. They engage with contemporary issues through their unique performance styles. From a discursive context, they enter the scene of resistance and undertake the labor of performance. Their performance is not just the preface to a series of dialogues, but also a witness to thirty years of People’s Theater.

　　“People’s theater” belongs to the people.
　　It is the theater created by the people and speaks for the people as it has appeared in history in diverse forms.
　　People theater in Inter-Asian Societies began to grow in a cross-region, which included Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Busan, Maputo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hualien, Taichung, and Taipei. Through the writings and images written down by theatrical artists from these spaces, we can figure out the body aesthetics that carry historical conflicts and the experience to find the form and channel of expression, and continue for work of thinking and creation.

　　“People Theater” is nothing but a rehearsal for a revolution.

　　This book has reviewed and reflected on the half-century development of people’s theater in inter-Asian societies, demonstrates how the theatrical practitioners and artists in different communities strived to open various spaces, dealt with the censorship from the authoritarian regime to the neoliberal societies, and experimented with diverse aesthetics and local objects to address political issues.

　　▍Preface
　　“It is a collection with the premise that can motivate our critical thinking with bodily energy. It reflects how we realize the statement—‘Viewing as participating; audience as actors.’It is also a book where some keywords constantly appear, like resistance, politics, the oppressed, and conversation. With its humming buzz and murmur against the present situation, it is a collection of words refusing to remain silent.”— Lin Hsin I（Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Art, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University）

　　▍People’s Theater Practitioners
　　Asian People’s Theatre Festival Society (Hong Kong)／Assignment Theatre (Taiwan)／Centre for Applied Theatre, Taiwan (Taipei)／Grass Stage (Shanghai)／Langasan Theatre (Hualien)／Makhampom Theatre Group (Ching Dao/Bangkok)／Oz Theatre Company (Taipei)／Philippine Educational Theater Association, PETA (Manila)／Shigang Mama Theater (Taichung Shigang)／Teater Kubur (Jakarta)／Teatro em Casa (Mozambique)／Theater Playground SHIIM (Busan)／Trans-Asia Sisters Theater (Taiwan)／WANG Mo-lin (Taiwan)／Wiji Thukul (Solo)／Yasen no Tsuki (Tokyo)

　　▍Recommenders
　　Lai Shu-Ya ／Director, Centre for Applied Theatre, Taiwan
　　Chen Chieh-Jen／Artist
　　Chen Hsin-Hsing ／Professor, Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, SHU
　　Chou Hui-Ling／Professor, Department of English, NCU
　　Hsu Jen-hao／Associate Professor, Department of Theater Arts, NSYSU
　　Kuo Li-Hsin／Professor, Department of Radio & Television, NCCU
　　Shih Wan-Shun／Associate Professor, Department of Taiwan Literature, NTHU
　　Yao Lee-Chun／A Director of Body Phase Studio–Guling Street Avant-garde Theatre (GLT)
　　
　　▍Characteristics of this book

　　1.Beyond the geographical limitations of Taiwan and East Asia, combined the context of  Inter-Asian societies and Third-World society, appreciate the theater work methods that are intertwined with folk culture and community traditions, and promote the practice of public theater.

　　2. This book focuses on depicting network relationships in specific historical periods, and explores how the cooperation and interaction of troupes in these heterogeneous regions occurred. And how do these interactions affect the characteristics and forms of popular theater organizations in the transition of different policies?

　　3. What this book looks back on is not only the continuation and development of troupes but also the sudden change or gap between new people theaters and old people theaters.
 

AUTHORS

Ratu Selvi Agnesia

　　A young female theater researcher active in Jakarta.  

Glecy Cruz ATIENZA

　　A Professor at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

AU Sow Yee

　　A guest writer for the online magazine No Man’s Land; Co-founder of Kuala Lumpur’s Rumah Attap Library and Collective.

BAEK Dae-hyun

　　A producer and an actor for the works of SHIIM.

Richard BARBER

　　A theater worker and independent scholar working as the co-director of Free Theatre in Melbourne, Australia and advisor to the Makhampom Theatre Group in Thailand.

Assane Alberto CASSIMO

　　A coordinator and founding member of Associação Teatro em Casa.

CHUNG Chiao

　　A playwright, theater director, poet, and the artistic director of Assignment Theatre.

Dindon W.S.
　
　　The Director of Teater Kubur.

Muhammad FEBRIANSYAH

　　A lecturer at School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang.

HAN Jia-ling

　　A history and rural education scholar and activist.

HONG Seung-yi

　　Currently working at Theater BAKK.

Hsiao-Chuan HSIA

　　A Professor at the Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, Shih Hsin University.

KUO Liang-ting

　　An adjunct lecturer at the Chinese Department of National Chung Cheng University.

LEE Show Shin

　　An artist from community people’s theater and a family care worker.

LIU Hsin-hung

　　The main participant of Yuquan Training since 2015.

Adaw Palaf LANGASAN

　　The founder and director of Langasan Theatre.

WANG Chu-yu

　　A contemporary artist, performance artist, and curator based in Mainland China.

WANG Mo-lin

　　A theater director, performance artist and cultural critic Robin WEICHERT (Tokyo).

Robin WEICHERT

　　A teacher of Hosei University, Tokyo.

WU Sih-Fong

　　A theater Critic, Associate editor of Performing Arts Forum (Macau).

ZHAO Chuana

　　A writer, theater maker and curator who creates alternative and socially engaged theater in China. Also, he is the founding member and mastermind of the theater collective Grass Stage since 2005.

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

Qi Li

　　Qi Li is a Ph.D. student in Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies in National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. She came to Taiwan out of curiosity, then got a journey full of adventures. Her ongoing projects focus on life stories of the small theater practitioners, the technologies of mobility and governance in contemporary conditions, and the political-economic transitions on both sides of the Taiwan Strait over the last half-century. She writes articles and reviews for independent media and research institutions based in different countries. She was the coordinator of “Where the People Are…Workshop on People’s Theater in Inter-Asian Societies” in December 2018.

Zikri Rahman

　　Zikri Rahman has consistently embarked on collaborations with educational and cultural activist groups in various socio-political projects through Buku Jalanan, a rhizomatic network of street library movement he co-founded in the year 2011. Operating as a loose cultural and knowledge workers movements, it focuses on decentralizing the modes of knowledge production. Other than that, he is also affiliated with Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, independent archival research and documentation focusing on Malaysia and Singapore’s people’s history. With LiteraCity, he initiated a literary and cultural mapping project in the city of Kuala Lumpur. Currently pursuing his postgraduate studies in Social Research and Cultural Studies in Taiwan, Zikri is also a writer, independent researcher, translator, and podcaster for various ephemeral platforms.

Joyce C.H. Liu

　　Joyce C.H. Liu received her Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature in 1984 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Currently, Dr. Liu is the Director of the International Center for Cultural Studies, and a full-time professor at the International Program in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, and the Director at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Her research focuses on geopolitics, biopolitics, border politics, internal coloniality, unequal citizens, epistemic decolonization, and artistic interventions. She has published six books, 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and chapters and coedited nine books. She is leading two ongoing joint research projects: “Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Critical Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,” awarded by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan (2018-2022), and “Migration, Logistics, and Unequal Citizens in the Global Context” (2019-2022), awarded by CHCI-Mellon Foundation.

CURATOR OF THE OPENING NIGHT

YAO Lee Chun

　　Theater director, producer and festival director, film researcher and curator.The director of Body Phase Studio since 2007 and has been as Director of Guling Street Avant-garde Theatre (GLT) since 2008.

PHOTOGRAPHER

HSU Ping

　　A documentary photographer. Over the past three decades, he has consistently documented the diverse phenomena of the post-Martial Law Taiwan and on/off the stage of modern theaters.

TRANSLATORS

BAEK Jin-sol

　　A student of master programme of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.

Kris CHI

　　M.A. of National Central University Department of English.

Victor FUNG Tsz Ching

　　A freelance translator graduated from Department of English, City University of Hong Kong.

LEONG Jie Yu

　　A Master’s degree in English Language Studies from the University of Malaya.

LIANG Chun-wen

　　Graduated from Department of English, National Central University.

LO Chun Yat, Timothy

　　M.A. of the Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Ting University.

Shu-Chuan LIN

　　M.A. of National Chung Hsing University Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and freelance translator.

IP Po Yee

　　M.A. of the Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.

Jonathan S. PARHUSIP

　　Ph.D. of the Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.

Kin TONG

　　A translator and researcher on psychoanalysis theory.