TheatreWorks' Desdemona : Fusing Technology and Tradition

In this era of increasing globalization we need to seek a broader understanding of the term interculturalism and, in response, a concomitant broadening of the role of the spectator in response. As I have argued elsewhere, attention should be focused on the dynamics that result or may result from new kinds of cultural fusions (see Grehan 2000). Here I want to extend that discussion with reference to TheatreWorks' production Desdemona, which premiered at the Adelaide Festival in March 2000.

TheatreWorks is an international performance company based in Singapore. The company specializes in exploring notions of the "traditional" and the "contemporary" through performance works that juxtapose different cultural elements in a process of collaboration and exchange. The artistic director of the company, Ong Keng Sen, is concerned with creatively interrogating the concept of "New Asia" in an increasingly global environment.

Desdemona was, according to the Festival program: a "new wave Asian production" (Ong 2000a:4) that used William Shakespeare's Othello as its point of departure. In his notes, director Ong Keng Sen, stated that Desdemona was "a journey through difference in Asia, traditional performing arts, gender, ritual and contemporary art; a process of reinvention" (5). The fact that Desdemona--which could be read, according to Ong Keng Sen's notes, as a project that aimed to be an exemplary new kind of cultural fusion--was interpreted as a profound failure makes both my desire to write about Desdemona and my concern with new kinds of cultural fusions in need of urgent justification and interrogation. ¹

At a festival forum on globalization entitled "Think Globally/Act Globally--International Collaborations," questions were raised about the problematics of globalization in the face of what is seen as the increasing disappearence of local issues in contemporary performance. In response to the forum I found myself asking the following questions: Are we, as theorists and cultural producers, too obsessed with local and global identities and with justifying fusions and exchanges? Is it time for the focus to shift? The forum reignited my desire to explore the possibilities for finding new ways of talking about what interculturalism might mean at the beginning of the 21st century. My concerns seem to be similar to those raised by Doug Hall in the forward to the catalog for The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland in 1999, in which he talks about the motivations behind the artists' work:

These artists not only cross geographical borders in terms of where they choose to practice, but also use media and subjects in ways which fracture any sense we might have of a recent art historical continuity. This is less concerned with traditional views of expatriations and diasporas, and more to do with artists finding linkages which enable their culturally specific experience to be relevant beyond their country of origin. It is not about finding a new home, but providing a means of generating new creative impulses. (1999:19)

Hall's comments can be read in a number of ways. They can be seen as an extension of notions of identity/location politics moving the discussion into a millennial moment, a moment of increased mobility and communication. Yet they can also be read as a call to move beyond notions of place, belonging, and diaspora as they are currently theorized. Hall seems to be suggesting that the artists involved in The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial have already shifted the focus of their work from reinforcing notions of home, place, and belonging, to creating "linkages" beyond origins as a catalyst for moving outward and perhaps even stimulating Deleuze and Guattarian "lines of flight" (1987:508). ²

Given that mainstream galleries and festivals are increasingly holding exhibitions and events focusing on identity, diaspora, and home, does this not mean that the subversive potential surrounding issues of diaspora and identity politics is waning as they become increasingly evident within the mainstream? ³

In...