Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the University of East London (UEL)
present the following webinar event:
Epic Performances in Central Asia: Theatre, Manas and Conflict Negotiation
10:00 am - 1:00 pm (BST, Europe/United Kingdom)
16 June 2014
You are invited to the webinar of the Centre for Performing Arts Development (CPAD) at UEL entitled Epic Performances in Central Asia: Theatre, Manas, and Conflict Negotiation hosted by the Higher Education Academy (HEA). The webinar will explore the relationship between conflict negotiation, performance and Manas in Central Asia. Manas is said to be one of the largest epic poems in the world, alongside the Mahabharata and the Iliad and Odyssey – containing more than half a million lines and sixty-five known oral variations - written and performed within a rhythmic and poetic style by orators, or manaschi. This webinar provides a timely opportunity to address how culture, performance and peace building practices interrelate and interweave in Central Asia extending to other research topics including identity formation, nationalism and localised approaches to the revision and revival of traditional culture.
If you would like to attend the webinar, please send an email in advance entitled 'webinar' alongside a biography to introduce yourself and your research interests. For more information or to RSVP for the webinar, please contact
Dr Ananda Breed at [log in to unmask] You can log onto the event between 9:45 am - 10:00 am on 16 June, prior to the start of the webinar using the following link:
https://ca-sas.bbcollab.com/m.jnlp?sid=2011158&password=M.2B642584C35694E48388B7C3CA24A9
We look forward to meeting you virtually on 16 June!
Please see the following information about the presenters and their abstracts and biographies below:
Title: Performing Soviet Identity on Kyrgyz Stage
Presenter: Ali İğmen
Abstract: My book Speaking Soviet with an Accent: Culture and Power in Kyrgyzstan explores the emergence and impact of Soviet Houses of Culture and Soviet Theatre on forging Kyrgyz cultural identity during the early decades of the Soviet era. This presentation will focus on the confluence of Soviet notions of modernity and Kyrgyz understandings of tradition during the 1930s and 1940s. Kyrgyz populations of the early Soviet era succeeded in forging a modern cultural identity that expressed a fusion of Soviet and Kyrgyz features. Theatre amateurs, enthusiasts and professionals managed to insert their own ideas of traditional culture into what they viewed as modern. As the official Soviet cultural policy vacillated, Kyrgyz populations took advantage of such uncertainties to construct their own version of Soviet cultural identity.
Biography: Ali İğmen is Associate Professor of Central Asian History, and the Director of the Oral History Program at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). His book Speaking Soviet with an Accent: Culture and Power in Kyrgyzstan has been published by the “Central Asia in Context Series” of the University of Pittsburgh Press in July 2012, and was a finalist for the Central Eurasian Studies Society’s Best Book Prize in 2013. His most recent article “Four Daughters of Tököldösh: Kyrgyz Actresses Define Soviet Modernity” appeared in 2012 (32/1) in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME). His book chapter “Kyrgyz Houses of Culture, 1920s and 1930s” appeared in Reconstructing the Soviet and Eastern European Houses House of Culture, (Habeck and Donahoe, editors,) by Berghahn Press in 2011. He received his doctorate from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2004, and as a post-doctorate visiting scholar, taught at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He also taught classes in Kyrgyz National University in Bishkek, Osh State University in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. A significant number of awards helped İğmen support his research on Kyrgyzstan such as Fulbright-Hays, SSRC, Mellon Slavic Studies Initiative Grant and FLAS. An invitational workshop at the Max Planck Institute in Halle, Germany helped him wrap up these projects. Recently, he received the university-wide Early Career Excellence Award from CSULB in 2011. He has given other book talks in University of Pittsburgh, University of Toronto, University of Washington, York University of Toronto, UCLA and Harvard. His current work is a comparative project on the often-conflicting state-initiated and society-supported “hero-making” processes during the 1960s and 1970s in Soviet Central Asia and Turkey.
Title: Manas Narration as a Means to Connect with the Spirit World
Presenter: Nienke van der Hiede
Abstract: Where storytelling and healing may appear to be two very different social fields, in the context of the Manas epic in Kyrgyzstan they are closely interrelated. Legend has it that in the olden days, Manaschïs were able to cure people by reciting parts from the epic in the presence of the afflicted. But also today, a Manas recital is seen to evoke energies that have a healing effect on people’s psychology, physical health and personal fate. In this presentation, I will explore some of the historic, social and cultural dynamics that underlie the use of storytelling for healing purposes in Kyrgyzstan today. I will discuss links between Manas reciting and shamanism, the influence of seventy years of Soviet regime on the spiritual meaning of the Manas epic and I will explore how present-day globalised spiritual encounters shape the intensity in which storytelling is perceived as a healing force.
Biography
Nienke van der Heide, Ph.D., spent two years in Kyrgyzstan between 1996 and 2000 doing fieldwork on the performance, publications and political use of the Manas epic. She lived with different families in various areas in the country, where she worked closely with Manas narrators. She found that Manas narrators engage in a profoundly spiritual relation with the characters of the tale, which for them exceeds the artistic and political aspects of narrating. Nienke van der Heide currently works as a massage therapist and lecturer at Amsterdam University College.
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