By Rossella Ferrari, University of Vienne, Visiting professor MSH

A collaboration with the Centre de recherche en cinéma et arts du spectacle (CiASp) and the Master en Arts du spectacle of the Faculté de Lettres, traduction et communication

This talk explores the notion of transnational Chinese theatres as a networked practice of intercultural performance collaboration. What are the benefits of looking at performance cultures through the prism of the transnational? How can we reframe the theatres of the Chinese-speaking region through a trans-Asian lens? What can the “trans-” mean in the contemporary performances of the Sinophone? Selected stage productions co-produced by theatre practitioners from the contemporary Sinosphere and the wider East Asian region will be examined as performative inflections of notions of minor transnationalism, inter-Asian referencing, and (trans-)Asia as method, in order to probe the capacity of the transnational to redefine intercultural performance from the perspective of networks and in the context of trans-Asian collaboration. These connections foreground collaborative practice as a generative site of counter-memory and transgressive imagination. They reveal the potential of a networked approach to intercultural collaboration to mobilize multiple dimensions of the “trans-” in order to reconstitute trans-Asian performance cultures as platforms for transgressive reconfigurations of the nation, and to enable the collective memorialization of contested national histories through transnational comparison.

Rossella Ferrari is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, and has previously taught at SOAS University of London, UK. Her research and publications focus on the contemporary performance cultures of China and the Chinese-speaking region, transnational and inter-Asian approaches to Sinophone theatres, and postsocialist performance in China. She is the author of Pop Goes the Avant-Garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China (2012), Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia (2020), and Asian City Crossings: Pathways of Performance through Hong Kong and Singapore (2021, co-edited with Ashley Thorpe).

Friday 19th April 2024, 2pm - 6pm

Bibliothèque des sciences humaines Simone Veil
Bâtiment NB - Niveau 2 - Salle NB2VIS
Avenue Paul Héger 1
1000 Bruxelles

Contact : ciasp@ulb.be