Historiography of The Body and Corporeality in Indonesian Theatre: The Search for Decolonial Aesthetics

Author

Mohamad Ugoran Prasad, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Theatre and Performance

Advisor

Peter Eckersall

Committee Members

Jean Graham-Jones

Claudia Orenstein

Barbara Hatley

Subject Categories

Performance Studies | South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies | Theatre History

Keywords

Indonesian theatre, the body and corporeality, theatre and coloniality of language, decolonial theatre, decolonial aesthetics, physical theatre

Abstract

A study on Indonesian theatre historiography, this dissertation explores how and why the body and corporeality serve as the dominant means of theatre-making in Indonesia. Tracing and locating the bodily practice in theatre and performance from Indonesian independence until the turn of the twenty-first century, it locates the frictional relationship between the body and corporeality with modernity and the coloniality of language. That friction occurs in the process of adapting and translating modern theatre in the 1950s as much as during the heyday of folk popular theatre in the 1960s, preferring the body and corporeality as a refuge from ideological, cultural, and language war. The experimental theatre practice in the 1970s onwards continues to glean from the refuge, especially in relation to the coloniality of the New Order’s autocratic regime and its developmentalism. By exploring the trajectory of the body and corporeality as a persistent refuge, this dissertation theorizes on the gestural nature of decolonial aesthetics and its future.

Recommended Citation

Prasad, Mohamad Ugoran, "Historiography of The Body and Corporeality in Indonesian Theatre: The Search for Decolonial Aesthetics" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5992