Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater

<p>In <em>Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese </em><em>Contemporary </em><em>Theater</em>, Peilin Liang develops a theory of bodily transformation.</p><p></p><p>Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater practitioners of minoritized cultures adopt transformance as a strategy to counteract the embodied practices of ideological and economic hegemony. This book observes key Taiwanese contemporary theater practitioners at work in forging five reconceptualized bodies: the energized, the rhythmic, the ritualized, the joyous, and the (re)productive. By focusing on the development of transformance between the years of 2000–2008, a tumultuous political watershed in Taiwan’s history, the author succeeds in bridging postcolonialism and interculturalism in her conceptual framework.</p><p></p><p>Ideal for scholars of Asian and postcolonial theater, <em>Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese </em><em>Contemporary </em><em>Theater </em>shows how transformance, rather than performance, calibrates with far greater precision and acuity the state of the body and the culture that it seeks to create. </p> <p>List of Figures Prologue Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION Transformance: In Search of a Body CHAPTER ONE Island Bodies in the Nexus of Empires CHAPTER TWO Energized Bodies: Cultural Hybridity as a Method of Transformance CHAPTER THREE Rhythmic Bodies: Transformance as a Postmodern Project CHAPTER FOUR Ritualized Bodies: Transformance as an Act of Worship CHAPTER FIVE Joyous Bodies: Transformance and the State CHAPTER SIX (Re)productive Bodies: Transformance in Deterioration CONCLUSION Transformance as Repair Index</p>