In this Book
- Remaking Pacific Pasts: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Theater from Oceania
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
summary
Since the late 1960s, drama by Pacific Island playwrights has flourished throughout Oceania. Although many Pacific Island cultures have a broad range of highly developed indigenous performance forms—including oral narrative, clowning, ritual, dance, and song—scripted drama is a relatively recent phenomenon. Emerging during a period of region-wide decolonization and indigenous self-determination movements, most of these plays reassert Pacific cultural perspectives and performance techniques in ways that employ, adapt, and challenge the conventions and representations of Western theater.
Drawing together discussions in theater and performance studies, historiography, Pacific studies, and postcolonial studies, Remaking Pacific Pasts offers the first full-length comparative study of this dynamic and expanding body of work. It introduces readers to the field with an overview of significant works produced throughout the region over the past fifty years, including plays in English and in French, as well as in local vernaculars and lingua francas. The discussion traces the circumstances that have given rise to a particular modern dramatic tradition in each site and also charts routes of theatrical circulation and shared artistic influences that have woven connections beyond national borders.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Illustrations
- pp. xi-xii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xiii-xiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-27
- References
- pp. 275-298
Additional Information
ISBN
9780824847753
Related ISBN(s)
9780824839765
MARC Record
OCLC
929790828
Pages
350
Launched on MUSE
2015-11-19
Language
English
Open Access
No