A Shakespearean Handan Dream
- Submitting institution
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The University of Essex
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 3132
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- London
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- -
- Year of first performance
- 2016
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This directing-based practice-as-research project brought together the work of Shakespeare and his Chinese contemporary, playwright Tan Zianzu of the Ming Dynasty, with the aim of exploring a hybridised performance methodology across both traditions. In China, Tan Zianzu is considered the finest writer of his time within the genre of Chinese opera, Kunqu. The research explored how a theatre director can draw from these two historically concurrent yet stylistically contrasting sources to develop a form of intercultural performance that speaks to both contexts, overcomes cultural barriers, and emphasises shared human experience.
The project, funded fully by the Ministry of Culture (estimated £250,000), Nanjing, involved UK actors in collaboration with a distinguished traditional Kunqu opera company, Lanyuan Theatre, in Nanjing, China. In collaboration with director/ leading actor Ke Jun, I co-created a script using Tang Zianzu’s The Handan Dream as a key source text. It was edited it into four key scenes and placed in parallel to extracts from different Shakespeare plays looking for connections of theme/tone/narrative/situation and character, focusing on commonality and universality of human circumstances.
The preparatory historical research into performance style aimed to maintain distinctive qualities of the two performance traditions, whilst also creating a shared performance language accessible for both groups of actors and contemporary audiences. A key research strategy was to create a new translation/adaptation and then to utilise performative elements within both forms such as dance, music and stage combat, and this development of a shared performance approach facilitated intercultural/transcultural exploration of theatre traditions, cultural histories, and contemporary practices. In particular, iterative rehearsal processes, appropriate to both forms, were researched, devised and implemented. Rehearsals were in Nanjing and London and performed/filmed at St Paul’s Actors Church Theatre, London, 2016. The film was distributed in China to numerous educational institutions and screened to live audiences.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
