This research investigates the effectiveness of intercultural performance activities on the study of English literature. Its primary objective is to introduce a new approach to teaching Shakespearean drama in the second/foreign language classroom by incorporating elements of traditional theatre

Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low

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CD ... ·. I{EtvlENTERIAN •• t . PENDIDIKAN . ... IvlALAYSIA FINAL REPORT /=06BO ~ctrlCl ,/;)..0// BORANG FRGS - P; FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH GRANT SCHEME (FRGS) Laporan Akhir Skim Geran Penyelidikan Fundamental (FRGS) Pindaan 112014 A RESEARCH TITLE: Intercultural Performativity In Learning And Interpreting Shakespearean Plays: Towards A New Model For Learning Literature 8 PHASE & YEAR: 1, 2011 START DATE: 1/8/2011 END DATE:31n12013 EXTENSION PERIOD (DATE): 11812013 - 31/1/2014 PROJECT LEADER: Dr Nurul Farhana Low bt Abdullah PROJECT MEMBERS: (including GRA) 1. Dr Agnes Liau Wei Lin 2. Dr Suzana Hj Muhamad 3. Dr Mumtaz urn Aboo Backer Project progress according to milestones achieved up to this riod Percentage (please state #%) 0-50% 4. Dr Alias bin Abd Ghani 51 -75% RESEARCH OUTPUT 76 -100% 100% Indexed Journal Non-Indexed Journal Number of article~ manuscrip~/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ books Book Chapters: fnternational: 2 (+ 1 (Please attach the First Page of forthcoming) Publication) Local: 1 1 Conference Proceeding International National (Prease affach ~e Fimt Page of~----~~~----~---------+~--~--~~~~---------Publication) Intellectual Property (Please specify) Human Capital 1 One public performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Penangpac, Straits Quay on 10-12 July 2012 HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT Number Others ~--~-~--~----T"---~~~~------I (please specify) On-going Graduated C.,t.lzen Research assistant: 2 l--_~ ________ ~_-+_M_a_la_Y_S_ia_n--+-.:.:.;M;§.211's~.:!.(;n~_M~a_la_YS_ia_n--+~~.s-~_; (Malaysian) PhD Student l-------~-~-~~___+_--~___ll__~-~_I_~~-__+--~-_; 1 failed mixed mode Master Student dissertation (please refer to ~u-nd-e-rg-r-a-d-ua-t-e-S-tu-d-e-n-t --~+--~--I---~-+----+--~~--I section E) Total C Budget Approved (Peruntukan diluluskan) Amount Spent (Jum/ah Perbelanjaan) RM 50,000 RM 42,000 o Balance (8akij Percentage of Amount Spent (Peratusan Belanja) (e.g: Course! Seminar! Symposium! Conference! Workshop! Site Vi Activity Workshop for actors 1 (with British Council) Workshop for actors 2 (with British Council) Workshop for actors 3 (with British Council) Workshop for actors 4 (with British Council) RM 8,000 85 % Date (Month, Year) Apri12012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 Organizer FRGS Intercultural Performativity FRGS Intercultural Performativity FRGS Intercultural Performativity FRGS Intercultural Performativity E Developing human capital: One Masters mixed mode student (2012) under my supervision wrote her dissertation on ; Teacher Training College adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream based on performance and movement (Labal analysis) however it was failed by the School of Humanities partly because the focus was purely on performance ani not text, hence the dissertation could not pass as a dissertation from the English Studies Section (this was stated to thl candidate by the then School of Hmanities' Deputy Dean of Academic Affairs during the viva voce). Following this incident, no graduate student has dared to attempt an inter-disciplinary research that combines Dram; and Performance! Acting for fear that they too will be failed. So long as administrators in IPTAs maintain rigid demarcations between text and performance and consider the two nc compatible as an area of academic study befitting the award of higher degrees (MA and PhD) from English Studies academics whose research area is Performance and Adaptation (specifically Shakespeare plays in my case) will b unable to produce 'human capitar in the form of graduated Masters/PhD candidates. 1. Create grant allocations for research in performance that do not mandate publications in journals as the onl F acknowledged outcomes; recognize also performance productions as KPI for research outcomes since th mounting of performance productions do require a lot of research in the adaptation process AND in this way, th research is shared with audiences from all levels including school children and members of the public who tur up to watch the performances. This is a more meaningful form of disseminating our research compared t publishing in high indexed journals which will only be accessible to a small [elite] group of academics who ca afford to pay for access to these journals. 2. Acknowledge book chapters by reputable international publication houses as outcome for publication. Art~ based research does not share the fortune of Science-based rnals to have numerous outlets for publication. In addition, the average Science-based publication is about 5 pages long whereas Arts-base indexed journals normally require articles at least 15 pages long (5000 words). G This research investigates the effectiveness of intercultural performance activities on the study of Englis literature. Its primary objective is to introduce a new approach to teaching Shakespearean drama in th second/foreign language classroom by incorporating elements of traditional theatre. One Shakespeare te; was mounted as public performance. Premised upon the principle that literature teaching/learning should n< be limited to textual analyses and classroom discussions. the public staged productions allowed studer actors to hone their soft skills in problem-based learning scenarios. Surveys on students' performanc anxiety were conducted pre-performance and after implementing rehearsal sessions which incorporate elements of traditional performance. Contrary to initial hypothesis that traditional theatre elements would hel students/actors in mastering the Shakespeare performance, the research indicated that students wer indifferent to the traditional performance elements; what helped their understanding was the Shakespear lines themselves, enunciated with correct rhythm and stress. International audience members found th traditional theatre elements to be a novel sensory experience that enhanced the enjoyment of Shakespeare' text. Students who had undergone the workshops and final performance were observed to have develope confidence in using English. This suggests that performativity can be a useful tool for building confidence an communication skills in second/foreign language learning. Date Tarikh Project Leader's Signature: ~_ Tandatangan Ketua Projek ./ ./?ft -H ................................................................................................................................................................................... . Name: Signature: Nama: Tandatangan: Date: Tarikh: CHAPTER EIGHT "CHEH! SIAL-NYAPEMBUNOH, PENDERHAKA!": THE SULTAN IDRIS TRAINING COLLEGE TRANSLATION BUREAU'S MACBETH AND JULIUS CAESAR NURUL FARHANA Low ABDULLAH The Sultan Idris Training College The Sultan Idris Training College (SITC) was established in Tanjung Malim Perak in 1922 to train local Malay teachers to teach in Malay vernacclar schook The selection for entry to the college was based upon competitive examinations held in village vernacular schools attended b.r the sons of peasant fanners and fishennen. Roff contr~sts students at thIS college with those attending the Malay College III Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), who were mainly from the aristocratic class: [A]t Kuala Kangsar, there were the sons of the traditio~al ruling.class and the wealthy, undergoing training for entry into the English-speakmg world of government and administration ... [whereas] at SITe, the sons of the peasantry and the poor [were]. undergoing training for return to the Malay speaking world of the rural village school.l In contrast to this statement, Farish A. Noor is much more critical, describing the function of the SITe as being 1 William R. Roff, The Origins of Malay Nationalism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967), 143. "Cheh! Sial-nya pembunoh, penderhakal" primarily directed towards the goal of reproducing the Western stereotypes of the pleasant, nimble Malay agriculturist or the rustic Malay schoolteacher who was meant to return to the villages to teach skills that were more in keeping with their 'traditional rural' lifestyle. The teaching staff consisted of one Filipino, four European, and nine Malay instructors [who] had been recruited to teach the students teaching methods as well as more 'traditional' skills like basket-weaving and· gardening which were so beloved of the Coloriial imagination.2 Farish further observes that the two institutions (MCKK and SITC) corresponded to the divisive nature of the Colonial Government's strategy of division and containment of the Malays into clearly-demarcated and policed spaces, namely, the urban space ofthe Malay Colonial-bureaucrats and the world of the tradition-bound rural peasantry. He concludes that [t]he Colonial administrators were most concerned to ensure that the fragile socia-political hierarchy they had created under Colonial rule ... was maintained indefinitely via the divisive educational system they had introduced.3 127 The SITC was nevertheless a very important institution for Malay education as it was the only form of secondary education available in the Malay language at the time. Headmaster O. T Dussek took great pride in the fact that "every activity that is genuine!l cultural and genuinely Malay has flourished in an astonishing manner' at the SITC. Malay students from allover the Peninsular lived and studied together at the college. Dussek explained that he and his staff took great pains to avoid state groupings or identification within the college and to emphasize to the boys that they were all essentially Malays, engaged in the 2 Farish A. Noar, The Other Malaysia, (Kuala Lumpur: Silverfish Books, 2002), 77-78. 3 Ibid., 78. 4 O.T Dussek, "Growing Pointsin Native Education: The Sultan Idris Training College" (Roneod Lecture, May 1939). Quoted in Roff, ibid.,143. The Play's the Thing': Early 20th Century Shakespeare Productions by Travelling Companies in Asia Introduction Nurul Farhana Low bt Abdullah Universiti Sains Malaysia, MALAYSIA and Kobayashi Kaori Nagoya City University, JAPAN nflow@usm.my/nuruIJow@yahoo.com; VZP05511 @nifty.ne.jp From the late nineteenth century, a number of acting companies began to tour the British Empire and Asia. This paper inquires into the impact these Western travelling companies made on the Shakespearean productions in the East around the tum of the twentieth century. However, research in this area is a work in progress, this paper is exploratory in nature, and the outcome of textual and archival exegesis. By the 1890s the conventional routes for travelling companies in the Empire were well established. A number of companies toured North America, Eastern Canada, Ne", Zealand and Australia. They also travelled to South Africa and some of them proceede( to India, and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand incorporating brief visits t( the "Far Eastern" colonial outposts such as Rangoon, Penang, and Singapore, as well a to the settlements of foreign nationals in Shanghai and Beij ing. Occasionally the: visited the small but growing group of British and American traders in port cities suc: as Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki in Japan. l I Most touring companies from Britain went to the United States. because it was only c week's voyage and quite often the tour brought some financial success. For example, the English actor J. H. Barnes went to America thirteen times between 1874 and 1913. However. apart from the big theatrical market in the United States it was the British Empire that made touring both possible and desirable for English companies. They weI to the major Canadian cities of Toronto and Montreal, to Australia, New Zealand. India 19i1l, Peter / Chesire, Jenny (eels) 1998. T~e. Sod ~ Jgu~stics Reader. Volume 1: Multilingualism and Varzatzon. London. Ar .. nold. ~ent, B.Y. Ooi (ed.) 2001. Evolving Identities: The English La~-guage in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Times AcademIc Press. NURUL F ARHANA Low A 1JLLAH Malaysian English in Postcolonial Adaptations of Shakespeare in Malaysia Introduction The study of Malaysian English in literary creation has been carried out sporadically since the early 1990s. Among the areas of focus were nativisation and the marking of ethnicity (bowenberg 1992), "nativi-sation through Malaysianisms in literary texts" (Fadillah 2000: cited in Azirah 2007) and lexical borrowing and -syntactic variation of Ma-laysian English in creative writing (Azirah 2007). Published studies on Malaysian English in local drama and performance have been few and far in between; in fact, the very existence of Malaysian drama in English was questioned by Yong (1984) who declared: "Trying to survive in an environment largely indifferent or hostile to its welfare, Malaysian drama in English today has only a precarious presence in the cultural life of the country". 1 Two decades later, Quayum notes that the scarcity of drama publication and by extension, studies on local drama in Malaysia could be due to "the crippling sense of mod-esty of the writers themselves, who often shy away from publishing their work or lending their script to researchers, sometimes even after the successful staging of their plays".2 One of the few collections of local English drama to appear in the twenty-first century is Huzir Margaret Yong 1984, "Colonial, Post-colonial, Neo-colonial and, at Last, a 'Post-nationaP Drama", World Literature Written in English. 23/1,234-242. 2 Mohammad, A. Quayum 1 Rosli, Talif 1 Noritah, Omar (eds) 2003. Petals of Hibiscus: A Representative Anthology of Malaysian Literature in English (petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia). We 'are currently experiencing a delay in Esamples being delivered. We are working to correct the issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience. I want this title to be available as an eBook Table of Contents Shakespeare on the University Stage EDITOR: Andrew James Hartley View all contributors PUBLICATION PLANNED FOR: December 2014 AVAILABILITY: Not yet published - available from December 2014 FORMAT: Hardback ISBN: 9781107048553 $95.00 Hardback Looking for an examination copy? If you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org (mailto:collegesales@cambridge.org,) providing details of the course you are teaching. Introduction. Tragedians of the city, little eyases or rude mechanicals? Andrew James Hartley 1. Campus Shakespeare: fragments of a history, fragments of a concept Peter Holland 2. Performance, religion and Shakespeare: staging ideology at Notre Dame Mark C. Pilkinton 3. George Rylands and Cambridge University Shakespeare Michael Cordner 4. Women who will make a difference: Shakespeare at Wellesley College Yu Jin Ko 5. Appropriating Shakespeare on campus: an Indian perspective Angelie Multani 6. Ideology and student performances in China Lee Chee Keng and Yong Li Lan 7. Shakespeare without resources: staging Shakespeare in the Midwest Andrea Stevens B. Shakespeare isn't just for the professionals: Shakespeare on the German campus Christa Jansohn 9. Holofernes, Peregrine and I: Australian campus Shakespeare Rob Conkie 10. The politics and economics of Malaysian campus productions of Shakespeare Nurul Farhana Low bt Abdullah 11. The Performance Research Group's Anthony and Cleopatra (2010) Jacquelyn Bessell 12. The laws of Athens: Shakespeare and the campus economy Paul Menzer ). Queering Shakespeare in the American South Chad Allen Thomas 14. Shakespeare laboratories and perfonnance-as-research Jonathan Heron 15. The small-college stage: is there still room for Shakespeare? Douglas E. Green 16. The Shakespeare performance campus W. B. Worthen Index. A Midsummer Night's Dream Dissected through Philosophy, Geographical Information System Mapping of Dance and Choreography: An Experimental Process Mumtaz Begum I Tarmiji Masron I Muhizam Mustafa I A.S. Hardy Shafii I Nurul Farhana Low Introduction This paper discusses the recent theatrical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (AMND) at Penang Performing Arts Centre from the 10th of Ju1y until 12th of July 2012 from three different perspectives; philosophy, Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping of dance and choreography. PhilosopiVcaliy, the theatre is divided into three realms; the world of the Gods or unknown, the world of the spirits or in this case the fairyland and the world of the mortals. The use of GIS to map the dance gives a new perspective to look at dance not just aesthetically but kinesthetically, a better way to be detected and understood. Simultaneously, the choreography or the story line of the dance too, describes the philosophy of the play. All three areas of knowledge complement and support each other to contribute further to a wealth of new" interpretations. This chapter generally attempts to capture the essence of reconstructing local knowledge through global research trajectories within the context of performance and performance studies. In this case, the researcher is highly interested in looking at the self (the performer),l the cultural background, the location and the occasion that calls for the performance. There is no single theoretical framework to explain but rather an employment of multi or cross-disciplinary research trajectories as a neVi way to seek understanding of the dance and its underlying meanings. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Dissected Philosophically 'The play opens ,vith a ritualistic buka panggung ceremony as in many Southeast Asian traditional and indigenous theatres and performances. The buka penMung can be understood as a ceremony to mark or to indicate the wish THE POLITICS OF SHAKESPEARE TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION IN MALAYA Nurul Farhana Low Bt Abdullah Introduction The Sultan Idris Training College (SITC) was established in 1922 to train local Malay teachers to teach in the Malay vernacular schools. Entry to the college was based on competitive examinations among sons of peasant farmers and fishermen from village Malay vernacular schools. Roff (1967) contrasts students at this college with their counterparts from the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) , who were mainly from the aristocratic class: [A]t Kuala Kangsar, there were the sons of the traditional ruling class and the wealthy, undergoing training for entry into the English-speaking world of government and administration .. . [whereas] at SITe, the sons of the peasantry and the poor [were] undergoing training for return to the Malay speaking world of the rural village school (p. 143). Farish A. Noor (2002, p. 77) is more critical, describing the function of the SITe as being "primarily directed towards the goal of reproducing the Western stereotypes of the pleasant, nimble Malay agriculturist or the rustic Malay schoolteacher who was meant to return to the villages to teach skills that were more in keeping with their 'traditional rural' lifestyle. " The teaching staff consisted of "one Filipino, four European, and nine Malay instructors [who] had been recruited to teach the students teaching methods as well as more 'traditional' skills like basket-weaving and gardening which were so beloved of the Colonial imagination" (ibid.). He observes that the two institutions "corresponded to the divisive nature of the Colonial Government's strategy of division and containment of the Malays into clearly-demarcated and policed spaces, namely, the urban space of the Malay Colonial-bureaucrats and the world of the tradition-bound rural peasantry"(p.78). Thus, "[t]he Colonial administrators were most concerned to ensure that the fragile socio-political hierarchy they had created under Colonial rule ... was maintained indefInitely via the divisive educational system they had introduced" (ibid.). 

Intercultural performativity in learning and interpreting Shakespearean plays:Towards a new model for learning literature.

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Intercultural performativity in learning and interpreting Shakespearean plays:Towards a new model for learning literature.

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