The Arts Britain Utterly Ignored: Or, Arts Council Revenue Funding and State Intervention in British East Asian Theatre in the Late 1990s and Early 2000s

Thorpe, Ashley

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71159-1_11

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the little existing work on a pan-Asian identity in the UK, which also focuses on some members of BEAA but has emerged in theatre studies, "British East (and Southeast) Asian identity" has conceptualised as an artistic affiliation, giving rise to "creative" and "aesthetic" differences, but not one that is rooted in political activism and that articulates ideological contestation (Rogers, 2015;Thorpe, 2018). By contrast, I want to suggest BEAA/BEATS' mobilisation as expressing an explicitly political subjectivity, which contests racialised notions of the model minority in tackling structural inequalities in the CCIs and carves out a distinctive politics that at times separates members from the wider stage and screen community.…”

Section: The Birth Of a Political Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming British East Asian and Southeast Asian: Anti-racism, Chineseness, and Political Love in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Yeh

2021

BJOCS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article advances work on the ‘British Chinese’ by reconfiguring the boundaries of the field and expanding it beyond the cultural and linguistic transformations of an ‘ethnic community’. Instead, I examine new pan-Asian political formations and situate them within wider anti-racist organising in Britain. First, I examine the birth of ‘British East and Southeast Asianness’ as an emphatically political identity that contests racialised notions of ‘the Chinese’ as a passive model minority and repositions us as political agents of change. Second, I examine the crafting of a political community, in which a pan-Asian identity emerges as a contestation of the borders of ‘Chineseness’ and its policing, while maintaining a Chinese hegemony. Third, I identify distinct political repertoires of anti-racism within this ‘community’, a more radical and a more integrationist approach, which highlights the challenges of political mobilisation, and is shaped by a continued abject status. Finally, I examine the role of political love and care as a means of mobilisation, through which a radical politics of affirmation and refusal is crafted. In doing so, I re-envision the political horizons of the so-called ‘British Chinese’, while shedding light on the current complexities, transformations and solidarities of communities within and beyond Chineseness.

show abstract

Section: The Birth Of a Political Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming British East Asian and Southeast Asian: Anti-racism, Chineseness, and Political Love in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Yeh

2021

BJOCS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Uncovering new East Asian writing was a part of that, as seen in Mu-Lan's First Festival of New Writing and Yellow Earth's Typhoon Festival and Yellow Ink programme (Thorpe, 2018, p. 211). Thorpe (2018) suggests that one of Mu-Lan's more successful plays was Porcelain, written by Singaporean playwright Chay Yew and staged at the Royal Court. This lyrical and striking play explores in 29 short scenes the relationship between nineteenyear-old British-born Chinese John Lee and his bisexual lover William Hope.…”

Section: Comparable Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Wendy and Min: A Theatrical Response to British Chinese Acculturation, Identity and Cultural Hybridity

Kon

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This PhD thesis comprises two components. The first part, Wendy and Min, represents the creative practice, a theatrical play dramatising the lives of the under-represented, diverse British Chinese community. The play explores inter-generational tensions arising from different degrees of acculturation and assimilation, cultural identity, and hybridity, as well as intra-racial tensions, intra-racial hierarchies, and intra-ethnic othering. The second part is a supporting essay divided into four main sections. The essay provides historical context for the play and offers a historical review of the settlement of the Chinese in Britain and the representation of the British Chinese on stage. In addition, it details a review of dramatic and literary sources that helped shape artistic decisions in the play’s plot, characterisation, dramatic structure, and style. Wendy and Min uses a character-driven, three-generation structure to interrogate the tensions arising from different degrees of generational acculturation and assimilation. The grandparents are first-generation immigrants from Hong Kong and Singapore/Malaysia. The second-generation parents are British-born or substantially brought up in the UK. The daughters, Wendy and Lisa are third-generation and British-born. Using the setting of a wedding and its various rituals, the play examines how different degrees of acculturation create ambiguity and fluidity in the British Chinese identity and how it is negotiated and articulated within the family when Wendy (Min), the protagonist, chooses to marry Peter, a mainland Chinese PhD student. Given the diversity of the British Chinese community, my own experience as a second- generation British-born Chinese of Malaysian descent living in Singapore would have been insufficient to create authentic, complex, and compelling characters. I did not want to resort to mythical, stereotypical, or hackneyed representations. I wanted to create characters that were contemporary and real and resonated with the audience. Therefore, in creating Wendy and Min in addition to my personal experience and those of my family and friends, I also used historical, social, and cultural studies, social media, anecdotal evidence, radio and informal interviews, and historical and contemporary British Chinese literary and dramatic works. This comprehensive approach detailed in the supporting essay gives me some confidence that although the creative piece is fictional, my myriad artistic choices are grounded in substance. In this way, I hope to create a piece that offers a more nuanced and complex representation of the British Chinese community, specifically, the second and third-generation British Chinese whose narratives are under-represented and seldom documented.

show abstract

Finding the sweet spot: critiquing a cultural ecosystems approach to civic cultural strategy making

Barker

Jordan

2022

Journal of Cultural Economy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Arts Britain Utterly Ignored: Or, Arts Council Revenue Funding and State Intervention in British East Asian Theatre in the Late 1990s and Early 2000s

Cited by 3 publications

References 10 publications

Becoming British East Asian and Southeast Asian: Anti-racism, Chineseness, and Political Love in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Becoming British East Asian and Southeast Asian: Anti-racism, Chineseness, and Political Love in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Wendy and Min: A Theatrical Response to British Chinese Acculturation, Identity and Cultural Hybridity

Finding the sweet spot: critiquing a cultural ecosystems approach to civic cultural strategy making

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About