Abstract
Wu Hsing-kuo and Contemporary Legend Theatre’s 108 Heroes of Water Margin I (2007) and 108 Heroes of Water Margin II (2011), adaptations from a Chinese classical by Shi Nai’an (施耐庵 1296–1372), Outlaws of Water Margin, combine jingju (a national theatrical form in Taiwan), hip-hop, rock and roll, and Western total theater, attracting a large young audience who have never attended jingju theater. This chapter investigates how Wu and the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s innovation of jingju have been entangled with Chinese or Taiwanese nationalism; and how 108 Heroes of Water Margin I and II attract young audiences, creating a cultural phenomenon. Chang probes crucial questions: interweaving hip-hop and Chinese Wind (zhongguo feng) into an eclectic concert-like performance, will the Chinese or Taiwanese audiences’ encounters with the Chinese symbols and images that have been mixed with Western pop music and Japanese Ukiyo-i (wooden painting) costumes give them a sense of déjà disparu and reengage them in a cultural past that has never been and is yet to come? Will the performance outflank the pace with a subject always on the point of disappearing or emerging? Will the replication machine appealing to the Asian market produce the symbols of the real and short circuit the vicissitude?
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- 1.
Beginning in the 1980s, it has been largely Brecht , Grotowski , and Western drama artists’ interest in Chinese and Asian theater that has inspired many Chinese spoken drama artists to look back at their own legacies and explore the possibilities of integrating some more expressive styles of sung drama into spoken drama. See Sun and Fei (1996, p. 189).
Similarly, following the lifting of the Martial Law in 1987, Taiwan’s theater artists freely hybridized the aesthetics and methods of Western directors such as Grotowski Brecht , Artaud , and Robert Wilson with Chinese and Taiwanese traditional operas , and indigenous rituals in a great variety of experiments, which impinged impact on both spoken drama and traditional operatic theater. See Chung, Alternative Aesthetics and Politics.
- 2.
From 1990 to 2005, the worldwide tour of Kingdom of Desire includes the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherland, China, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea . See Lu (2006, p. 8).
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Hou, Yanqing. 2007. No Tiger Fighting After Drinking: Chang Ta-ch’uen and Wu Hsing-kuo Talk About 101 Heroes of Water Margin. United Daily, September 30, E7. [侯延卿記錄整理。〈酒後不打虎:張大春、吳興國的水滸經〉。《聯合報》。2007年9月30日,E7版。]
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Shi, De-yu. 2007a. Review of CLT’s 108 Heroes. PAR 179 (November): 51–51. [施德玉。〈評當代傳奇劇場《水滸一○八》〉。《PAR表演藝術》第179期 (2007年11月): p. 51。]
———. 2007b. The Explosive Power of CLT: An Impression of 108 Heroes. Yìshù xīnshǎng 3(6): 99–100. [施德玉。〈當代傳奇的”爆”發力-觀看《水滸108》有感〉。《藝術欣賞》3.6 (2007): pp. 99–100。]
Wu, Yue-lin. 2012. The Subjectivity Swung Between Tradition and Innovation: A Restudy of Contemporary Legend Theater,1986–2011. Dissertation, Chung Cheng University. [吳岳霖。《擺盪於創新與傳統之間:重探「當代傳奇劇場」(1986–2011)》。國立中正大學中國文學系暨研究所, 2012。]
Video
108 Heroes: Tales from “The Water Margin.” I [Adapted from Shi Nai-an’s The Water Margin.] Contemporary Legend Theatre. DVD.
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Chang, I.IC. (2018). Encountering the Alienated Self: Hip-Hop Jingju Chasing Chinese Wind in Contemporary Legend Theatre’s 108 Heroes . In: Tuan, I., Chang, IC. (eds) Transnational Performance, Identity and Mobility in Asia. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7107-2_1
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