Theatres and Modernization - Assignment

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From the course by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)

Theatre and Globalization

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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)

Theatre and Globalization

66 ratings

Learn how theatre and globalization have affected each other over the past century, and how to conduct your own research on global theatre histories.

From the lesson

Global Hubs and Local Theatres

Theatre Buildings as 'Cultural Hubs' and 'Contact Zones'; methodologies and concepts for approaching theatres as places where different people, languages, and cultures met and interacted.

Global Hubs and Local Theatres- Introduction 2:12

Theatres and Modernization - Assignment 2:50

Meet the Instructors

Christopher Balme
Professor
Institut für Theaterwissenschaft / Department of Theatre Studies

In the final part of this module, I want to ask how the building of theaters

relates to the wider questions of globalization we have been discussing.

Let us start with deterritorialization.

The fact that Europeans might want to build theaters in their new

dwelling places is understandable.

It is one attempt to turn deterritorialization into

reterritorialization, to transplant the institutions of home to a new environment.

This is obviously the case with the Lyceum Theatre in Shanghai,

and it was a pattern repeated throughout the British and other empires.

The French government built three opera houses in Indochina,

today's Vietnam, when it was a French colony.

In Saigon, Haiphong, and Hanoi.

This was a deliberate attempt to provide cultural infrastructure for

the colonial cities.

Ideas of modernization were obviously also a strong motivation.

We saw this in Cairo where the French-educated Khedive

saw the construction of theaters as on par with urban redevelopment,

modern sewage systems, and gas lighting.

We can also apply our term connectivity here.

The construction of a theater meant that a city was now on the theatrical map, and

more likely to receive a visit from touring companies.

One put oneself on the global, cultural map, as it were,

with modern theater buildings.

I would like to now outline some tasks for you to do.

Do you have a theater building in your hometown dating back 50, 100 years or

even further?

When was it built?

How did it look back then?

How does it look today?

Is it still in use as a theater?

Or has it become a cinema or something else, perhaps a shopping mall?

For this assessment,

we ask you to find out about the one of the local theaters where you live.

You can browse the newspaper archives we've already showed you in

the first section of this course to find news and

advertisements on productions, companies on tour, etc.

You can look into Wikipedia or other freely available online resources.

Provide us with the following information.

When was it built?

When did major changes occur such relocation, fire, etc.

?

Who owned or built it?

Did any major star actors or troupes perform there?

If you want, you can also go to the place and

make a picture of the theater as it looks today.

We will provide you with a mask to enter your data.

Once we have your data, we will plot it on a digital map.

This could be very interesting.

We will select the best entries and show them next week.

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