Description
In Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater, Peilin Liang develops a theory of bodily transformation.
Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater practitioners of minoritized cultures adopt transformance as a strategy to counteract the embodied practices of ideological and economic hegemony. This book observes key Taiwanese contemporary theater practitioners at work in forging five reconceptualized bodies: the energized, the rhythmic, the ritualized, the joyous, and the (re)productive. By focusing on the development of transformance between the years of 2000–2008, a tumultuous political watershed in Taiwan’s history, the author succeeds in bridging postcolonialism and interculturalism in her conceptual framework.
Ideal for scholars of Asian and postcolonial theater, Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater shows how transformance, rather than performance, calibrates with far greater precision and acuity the state of the body and the culture that it seeks to create.
Table of Contents
List of Figures Prologue Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION Transformance: In Search of a Body CHAPTER ONE Island Bodies in the Nexus of Empires CHAPTER TWO Energized Bodies: Cultural Hybridity as a Method of Transformance CHAPTER THREE Rhythmic Bodies: Transformance as a Postmodern Project CHAPTER FOUR Ritualized Bodies: Transformance as an Act of Worship CHAPTER FIVE Joyous Bodies: Transformance and the State CHAPTER SIX (Re)productive Bodies: Transformance in Deterioration CONCLUSION Transformance as Repair Index
