What is it about?
2016 marked the quatercentenary of the death of both William Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu. The UK and China used the two national poets for cultural diplomacy and projection of soft power. The culture of commemoration is a key factor in Tang’s and Shakespeare’s positions within world theatre. Performances of commemoration take a wide range of approaches from grass-root events to government-sponsored festivals.
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Why is it important?
Cultural memory is actively constructed through embodied and political performances. Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare, two “national poets” of unequal global stature, have recently become vehicles for British and Chinese cultural diplomacy and exchange during their quatercentenary in 2016. The culture of commemoration is a key factor in Tang’s and Shakespeare’s positions within world theatre. Performances of commemoration take a wide range of approaches from grass-root events to government-sponsored festivals. With a comparative scope that explores the afterlives of the two dramatists, this cluster of essays examines commemorative practices, the dynamics of artistic fame, comparability of different dramatic traditions, and transformations of performance styles in socio-historical contexts.
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This page is a summary of: Performing Commemoration: The Cultural Politics of Locating Tang Xianzu and Shakespeare, Asian Theatre Journal, January 2019, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/atj.2019.0024.
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