2019 IFTR CONFERENCE SCHEDULE DAY 1 MONDAY JULY 8 WG 1 DAY 1 MONDAY July 8 9:00-10:30 WG1 SAMUEL BECKETT WORKING GROUP ROOM 204 Chair: Trish McTighe, University of Birmingham 9:00-10:00 General discussion 10:00-11:00 Yoshiko Takebe, Shujitsu University Translating Beckett in Japanese Urbanism and Landscape This paper aims to analyze how Beckett’s drama especially Happy Days is translated within the context of Japanese urbanism and landscape. According to Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, “shifts are seen as required, indispensable changes at specific semiotic levels, with regard to specific aspects of the source text” (Baker 270) and “changes at a certain semiotic level with respect to a certain aspect of the source text benefit the invariance at other levels and with respect to other aspects” (ibid.). This paper challenges to disclose the concept of urbanism and ruralism that lies in Beckett‘s original text through the lens of site-specific art demonstrated in contemporary Japan. Translating Samuel Beckett’s drama in a different environment and landscape hinges on the effectiveness of the relationship between the movable and the unmovable. The shift from Act I into Act II in Beckett’s Happy Days gives shape to the heroine’s urbanism and ruralism. In other words, Winnie, who is accustomed to being surrounded by urban materialism in Act I, is embedded up to her neck and overpowered by the rural area in Act II. This symbolical shift experienced by Winnie in the play is aesthetically translated both at an urban theatre and at a cave-like theatre in Japan. The shift from the civilized into the uncivilized portrayed by Beckett is still expanding the possibilities of renovating the ruins for a theatrical space in Japan. By focusing on Japanese productions of Beckett‘s plays performed in 2019, this paper clarifies the definition of ‘Beckett‘s theatre in Japanese urbanism and landscape’ that echoes and intersects with the globalized theatre. Yoshiko Takebe is Associate Professor in Translation and Interpreting Course at Department of Practical English, Shujitsu University in Japan. Her research focuses on the correlation between nonverbal and verbal forms of expressions with respect to drama and theatre. She studied Drama and Theatre in Research at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has worked as a Japanese-English interpreter and translator in Tokyo. 4 WG 1 TRANSLATION, ADAPTATION AND 9:00 — 10:30 WG1 8 July 1 MONDAY DAY DRAMATURY WORKING GROUP ROOM 311 Western theatrical Imperialism/Western theatre in a Global Context Chair: DUSKA RADOSAVLJEVIĆ, Central School of Speech and Drama Houman Zandi Zadeh, Independent Stage as Utopia: The Birth of European Theatre in Iran Iranian performance traditions originate in ancient times, however, European theatre was introduced to Iranians in the 19th century. Primarily, some Iranian students and authorities wrote journals about European theatre performances and venues. This continued with the translations and adaptations of Molière’s plays in the mid-19th century. The socio-political content of Molière’s works highly applied to Iranian intellectuals and freedom-fighters who sought change in the direction of lawful government and orderly society. Some of them, influenced by Molière and other European playwrights, began writing original Iranian plays. In fact, the birth of European theatre in Iran was organically connected to the need for socio-political change. The climax was the 1906 Iranian Constitutional Revolution - the first revolution in the Middle East. This paper seeks to answer two questions: why and how did European theatre enter Iran? And how did this influence the Iranian society and culture? I begin with the definitions of the terms adaptation and translation from European and Iranian perspectives, and an overview about Iran’s socio- political situation in the 19th century. This will be followed by a general analysis of the early Iranian play adaptations and translations. The paper concludes with the place of theatre in the pre-Constitutional Revolution era. Bio: Houman Zandizadeh is an Iranian playwright and researcher. He was awarded the Akbar Radi Prize for the Best Young Playwright of Iran in 2008 and 2009, and was shortlisted in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Before moving to Australia, he was the Head Association for Dramatic Literature at the University Theatre Centre of Iran. In 2014 he finished runner-up in the Arts Award Category among international students in South Australia, and won it in 2015. In 2015 he was shortlisted for the Postgraduate International Student of the Year Award. In 2016 he published a book in Persian titled Step-Motherland: Tips for Immigration. Houman has recently finished his practice-led PhD in the areas of drama, migration, adaptation, and translation. 5 WG 1 Ting Zhang, University of Sydney The Historical Evolution of Different Receptions of Ibsen's work in China: Implications for Dramaturg as a 'Transmission' The history of the reception of Ibsen’s plays in China closely reflects some of the major social and political transitions that Chinese artists and their audiences have lived through. Generally speaking, we can divide the interpretation and promotion of Ibsen’s work into three periods, corresponding to the three major phases of nation-building in modern China: (i) from 1907 to 1949; (ii) from 1949 to 1978; (iii) from 1978 to the present. In the first period, Ibsen was translated and adapted enthusiastically and became a primary author in the development of Huaju(spoken drama) in China. Chinese intellectuals embraced Ibsen as an ideological model that help to enlighten the masses and stimulate social and political change. Between 1949 and 1978, the emphasis of Huaju was turned to domestic authors and new works due to political reasons, and very few productions of Ibsen's works were staged. Over the last 40 years, however, there has been a substantial re-engagement with Ibsen due to social progress in China. Particularly since the 1990s, his plays have been appreciated more for their aesthetic and cultural potential and not simply as an ideological tool. This paper uses the example of Ibsen's reception in China to identify the constraints of historical, social and political factors on scholars and artists in general, and dramaturgs in particular, to interpret the true meaning of Ibsen's works. As a comprehensive role of the dramaturg, it must be able to link between the history and present, the society and individuals, as well as between the artists and audiences. In conclusion, we suggest the dramaturgs overcoming historical, political, ideological and social constraints with a wide range of knowledge, sensitivity, and tolerance towards different opinions and interpretations of artistic works. More importantly, to play the role of a 'transmission' by engaging with others through the mutual learning process. Ting Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research is on 'Transformational Role of the Dramaturg between Drama Production Teams, Critics and Audiences in the Transitional Society of China.' Before she came to study at Sydney, her Bachelor, and Masters degrees—the former from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and the latter from the National Academy of the Arts—have given her a solid grounding in theatre, film, and television. As well as her extensive experience as an arts journalist in China(she worked as a journalist and editor in China Arts Newspaper 中国艺术报 for five years ), allowing her privileged access to some of the leading contemporary Chinese theatre practitioners, and published a large number of reports and reviews. 6 WG 1 Rossella Ferrari, SOAS University of London 9:00 — 10:30 WG1 8 July 1 MONDAY DAY Adapting Atrocity: Sino-Japanese Performance and the Political Memory of World War II in Asia More than seventy years after the end of World War II, contested memories of Japanese imperialism continue to intervene in inter-Asian politics and social relationships as sources of diplomatic friction, popular remonstrations, and populistic appeals to nationalism. Conflicting claims for legitimacy in representing contentious historical events have produced a plethora of discordant narratives and performances of memory. This paper examines a case of Sino-Japanese theatrical collaboration to illuminate processes of deconstruction of political memory through deconstructive adaptation. In 2011/2012, directors Danny Yung, from Hong Kong, and Satō Makoto, from Tokyo, co-devised a bilingual cross-genre version of "The Spirits Play" (1998), by Singaporean playwright Kuo Pao Kun (1939–2002), with a mixed ensemble of kunqu (Kun opera) actors from the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group Kun Opera Theatre, based in Nanjing, China, contemporary Japanese theatre and dance performers, and actors from Tokyo’s Tessenkai Noh Theatre Laboratory. "The Spirits Play: Rituals to Soothe the Unsettled Spirits" revisits the memoropolitics of Kuo’s archetypal war-memory drama by means of hauntology and intertextuality. Whereas Kuo’s text is generally regarded as a poignant allegory of the brutality perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Occupation of Singapore (1942–45), the Kun-Noh crossover conjures the deconstructive figure of the ghost as a dramaturgical expedient to memorialize the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 – one of the most controversial and yet unresolved chapters in modern Sino-Japanese history. The spectropoetics of Yung and Satō’s hauntological adaptation deconstructs the ghosted ontology of indigenous ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) performance traditions to articulate a spectropolitical critique of historical atrocity and contemporary inter-Asian relations, as the unsettled spectres of Nanjing keep haunting state interactions, grassroots diplomacies, and reconciliation processes in the present. Rossella Ferrari is a Reader in Chinese and Theatre Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at SOAS University of London, UK. Her research and publications focus on the performance cultures of China and of the Chinese-speaking region, interculturalism, transnationalism, adaptation, inter-Asian methodologies, and avant-garde theory.