Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Society for Cultural Anthropology

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities

Primary Theme: Identity and Equity

Secondary Theme: Indigeneity

(2-0140) Presenting Southeast Asia: Re-Imagining Performance in Precarious Political and Economic Times

The anthropology of performance is often divided into two broad categories, cultural
performance and performing culture. Cultural performance refers to the formal,
embellished cultural productions of music, theater, and dance while performing culture
refers to the way that people interact and engage with the world around them through
their everyday activities (cf. Schechner 2011 and Turner 1987). Cultural performances
contribute to heritage preservation, constructions of identity, and in some cases national
discourses, by drawing on social norms and traditions to create representations of culture.
The concept of performing culture, on the other hand, emerged with the distinctions that
Goffman (1959) proposed between presentation of self in front spaces and back spaces,
and with Turner’s (1980) concept of social dramas—everyday theatrical events that occur
in moments of tension during breakdowns in communication. These everyday
performances are tied to the negotiation of hegemony and agency in daily life and are
intertwined with the performance of various forms of identity—Butler’s (1988) gender
performativity, for example.

In contemporary times, cultural performance and performing culture are also shaped by
the interplay of globalized forces that determine the investments that pour into cultural
arts productions, while transitions in political economy reconfigure the philosophies and
methods in which everyday people perform social actions to navigate the changing times
(Greenberg 2014). Southeast Asia is a critical site to examine the changing configurations

of performance due to the region’s unique position of intense global investment in
conjunction with precarious systems of governance (Allison 2008). With its great
regional diversity, Southeast Asia provides comprehensive data that furthers the
conversation of what constitutes cultural performance and performing culture.

This panel uses specific case studies from Southeast Asia to begin to break down the
misleading cultural performance/performing culture binary. Looking, in some cases, at
what would be considered cultural performances, it examines how the everyday lives of
performance practitioners are defined through the adaptation of their art forms to new
cultural contexts. Conversely, the panel also explores cases in which performing culture
in the everyday is related to the constructions of identity and ideological discourses
commonly connected to cultural performance. Some of these cases consider the role of
performance activities in strengthening indigenous practices. Others examine the
translation of arts practices from ritual to commercial or the transmission of practices
across international boundaries. These cases explore the potential forms of violence and
forms of opportunity that these cultural changes can entail. All of the papers examine
how performance can give local groups and individual artists agency to engage with and
develop their own sense of cultural identity, and simultaneously be used as a vehicle for
hegemonic ideologies that stem from discourses of national identity construction.

Organizer(s)

• Phuoc Duong

  Lecturer
  California State University, Fullerton

Chair(s)

• Phuoc Duong

  Lecturer
  California State University, Fullerton

Presenter(s)

• Phuoc Duong

  Lecturer
  California State University, Fullerton

Organizer(s)

• Celia Tuchman-Rosta

  Adjunct Assistant Professor
  CUNY York College

Chair(s)

• Celia Tuchman-Rosta

  Adjunct Assistant Professor
  CUNY York College

Presenter(s)

• Celia Tuchman-Rosta

  Adjunct Assistant Professor
  CUNY York College

• Eva Rapoport

  Mahidol University

• Tiffany Pollock

  Postdoctoral Fellow
  York University

• Rica Daya Aquino

  researcher/writer
  University of the Philippines, U.P Center for Ethnomusicology

Presentations:

• 12:00 PM - 12:15 PM

  Performing the “Success” of Da Nang City: How Young Adults Represent Socialism in Times of Economic Uncertainty.
  Phuoc Duong – California State University, Fullerton
• 12:15 PM - 12:30 PM

  Performing "Khmerness": Living Life as Women, Classical Dancers, and Cultural Symbols
  Celia J. Tuchman-Rosta – CUNY York College
• 12:30 PM - 12:45 PM

  Javanese trance dance: archaic practice in the light of modern Indonesia’s religious and cultural policies
  Eva Rapoport – Mahidol University
• 12:45 PM - 1:00 PM

  The “Last Original Fire Show”: Fire Dance and Changing Tourist Economies in Southern Thailand
  Tiffany Pollock – York University
• 1:00 PM - 1:15 PM

  Negotiating Indigeneity in Urban Centers: The Cultural Performance of Indigenous Igorots in Baguio City, Philippines
  Rica Daya Olivar Aquino – University of the Philippines, U.P Center for Ethnomusicology