Abstract: In this article, I explore the adaptation and performance of Shakespeare's Othello in modern and contemporary Iranian theatre, focusing on its critique of patriarchy and honor-based violence. Since the 1880s, Iranian performances of Othello have played a key role in negotiating modern perspectives against conservatism and gender discrimination. As a notable performance exploring themes of honor killing and female subjugation, I particularly examine Hamid Mozaffari's (2009) stage adaptation of Shakespeare's play, which highlights Desdemona's victimization and critiques male jealousy and honor killings. By tracing Persian performances of Othello from the Pahlavi to the postrevolutionary era, I underscore Othello 's sociopolitical significance in Iran, where honor killing remains a culturally ingrained practice. Using performance analysis and critical writings of scholars of Middle Eastern Shakespeares such as Katherine Hennessey, I situate Othello within the broader context of Iranian theatre and its ongoing critique of societal structures that perpetuate violence against Iranian women.
Abstract: In this article, I situate the promotion of nannü heyan (coed performances and gender-appropriate casting) by Chinese intellectuals and theatre-makers in the early 1920s within the professionalization of modern Chinese theatre, aiming to reveal their desire for the masculinization of theatre and an implicit misogyny that sought to jettison femininity from theatre. Analyzing the discourse around the gender-appropriate casting that emerged from the aimei theatre movement and particularly Renyi xiju zhuanmen xuexiao 's (People's Art Drama School) first public performance in May 1923, I argue that trying to establish the modern theatre as a legitimate profession, Chinese intellectuals and theatre-makers in the early 1920s masculinized modern theatre by adhering to the scientifically sanctioned gender roles, repelling effeminized bodies from the stage, and further severing theatre's symbolic ties to womanhood and femininity. In so doing, professional theatre in modern China continues to be paradoxically shaped by and reflect a male-dominated discourse, despite the fact that the professional discourse in early Republican China echoed the May Fourth Movement's emphasis on women's liberation.
Abstract: This article examines the selection criteria and production practices of the Young Artists Platform for Dance (YAPD, 青年舞蹈人才培育计划), a prominent funding and production initiative that has supported independent dance-making in mainland China since 2014. Drawing on Sarah Wilbur's (2021) methodological approach, which treats dance grant-making as an infrastructural force shaping artistic production, aesthetics, and institutional values, I analyze YAPD's curatorial role in shaping innovation within contemporary Chinese dance. Using the YAPD-commissioned work Yong I (2017) as a case study, I explore how the platform's funding criteria and programmatic structure tend to generate a self-reinforcing cycle that aligns innovation with modern and contemporary aesthetic paradigms. I suggest that YAPD's funding model contributes to the production of a distinctive creative grammar and economy of movement. Finally, I situate YAPD within China's broader dance funding infrastructure and examine the precarious position the platform occupies within the contemporary dance funding ecology.
Abstract: Dancing bodies are continually shaped by—and simultaneously reshape—the training systems they regularly engage with. This dynamic interplay reveals that training systems are far from static or immutable; rather, they are ongoing sites of negotiation of ideas and values. Focusing on changjak chum ("newly created dance"), a new form of Korean dance that emerged in the mid-1970s as a means of interrogating and articulating contemporary Korean identity, this essay examines the discourse surrounding newly developed Korean dance training systems ( gibon ) and how they have functioned as critical sites of identity formation. Gibon (literally, "basic") refers to a system of foundational movements, drawn from traditional Korean dance and arranged into sequences to be practiced regularly. These systems serve not only as warm-ups but also as generative foundations for building movement vocabulary and choreographic tools. Deeply embedded in the sociopolitical contexts of a new Korea in the 1970s—postindependence, post-division South Korea— changjak chum arose in opposition to sinmuyong ("new dance"), a form that originated in the 1930s during the Japanese colonial period. Leaders of the new form were tasked with developing "our own" movement vocabulary capable of expressing "new Koreanness." In doing so, they required newly devised training systems—both rooted in precolonial traditions and responsive to changing realities. This essay argues that the newly developed gibons collectively demonstrate how changjak chum has worked to establish its own technical and aesthetic foundations, thereby creating a distinct dance form capable of embodying new Koreanness.
Abstract: This article examines the interrogation of political authority in Shakespeare's Macbeth (c.1606) and Tan Sri Dato' Muhammad Ali Hashim and Omar Ali's Dato' Seri (2016), showing how the latter reworks Shakespeare's play for a modern Malaysian audience. I argue that Dato' Seri engages in a process of cultural translation, transforming Shakespeare's exploration of Jacobean absolutism into a modern commentary on Malaysian leadership. I begin by establishing Macbeth and Dato' Seri 's historical and discursive contexts, as well as considering Muhammad Ali Hashim's unique career and political perspective. I then show how Dato' Seri incorporates and transforms three elements from Shakespeare's play: conceptions of leadership and corruption, the image of the ideal ruler, and the nature of the tyrant. I begin by considering how Dato' Seri converts Shakespeare's crown motif and witches into the lancang kuning (yellow sailboat) motif and the bomoh characters, respectively, shifting the thematic focus from absolutism to amanah (trust). This is followed by the reimagining of Duncan as Raja Jayaputera, with Shakespeare's meek Christian king becoming a benevolent Malay aristocrat. I then turn to Macbeth himself, showing how the Bard's absolutist tyrant is turned into an authoritarian Malay capitalist.
