Oral Performance in Print and Webcast

ORAL PERFORMANCE IN PRINT AND WEBCAST MARGARET BAPTIST WAN University of Notre Dame [W}hile man's environment changes, the dynamics of tradition may be transformed but they do not disappear. , ---Dan Ben-Amos! As any observer in China today would notice, adaptations of the oral tradition are ubiquitous on the radio, television, and internet. What relationship do these technologically adapted products bear to the oral tradition? The relation between the oral tradition and print and broadcast media is by no means a new issue. However, the interactivity of the . internet sets it apart from the models which analyze·"droppings" (Ruhlmann: 1974) from the oral tradition. In my presentation, I sketched some of the implications of the interactivity of media for both performers·and scholars, in hopes of opening the issue for further discussion. The models we have for the interaction between the·oral tradition and technology are based on the much-studied relationship between oral performance and texts (manuscript or printed). One.question still under debate is the function of written versions of stories from the oral 1 Dan Ben-Amos 1990: vii. This is contrary to the view held by most scholars of the Chinese oral tradition that assumes technology is a threat to its survival. For example, Vibeke B~ahl states, "The oral art of storytelling has been able to coexist for centuries along with the written and printed word. The challenge from the highly orally oriented media of radio and television seems to present a much greater threat to the old traditions." "Yangzhou pinghua is a living tradition. In competition with radio, television and a new lifestyle, it maybe on the brink of extinction,' but we can still listen to performances by masters, educated according to the age-old customs." "As the alternative entertainment offered by modem mass-media is gaining ground, it is not likely that professional storytelling will continue unaffected.· There is a serious threat that local traditions such as this will disappear or disintegrate into forms past recognition." B~ah1, 1996: 243, 218, xxvi. CHINOPERL Papers No. 24 (2002)©2002 by the Conference on' Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. CHINOPERL Papers No. 24 tradition: Were they written as scripts to be performed, or as text~to be read? An insight into this conundrum may be obtained from the glossy souvenir books currently published to tie in with successful movies. They contain stills from the film, maybe an essay or a preface, and the script of the movie. While the obvious point of publishing such a book is to allow fans of the movie to relive the experience through a different medium, one that is not time-bound, the heart of the book is the actual script which was written to be performed. Of course, movie scripts do not belong to the oral tradition, nor is the principle of creation in performance at work, which throws a wrench into the analogy. However, the analogy suggests that the answer to this particular conundrum is both/and rather than either/or. In other words, texts are often sources for the oral tradition, while other texts recreate or rework performance for readers. What relationship do technologically mediated forms bear to "authentic" oral performance? In the Qing dynasty there were shops that rented manuscript copies of storytelling transcriptions. These texts are probably best understood on the "souvenir" model, rented by fans to recall a performance they had seen or to compensate when they could not see it. The question is, do audio and video stand in the same relationship to storytelling as these texts? Would the taxi drivers who listen to storytelling on the radio or on tape prefer to see a storyteller live?· Is there a sense of these media as a second-best substitute, or have they created a new pseudo-oral form? 2 2 Here I am using the term pseudo-oral to mean simply a text that seems to be part of the oral tradition but in fact is not. My use differs from the traditional definition of the term because the performers may be part of a living oral tradition whose art is frozen by the media recording them, rather than the...