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COPYRIGHT 2005 www.wmich.edu/compdr
Introduction
The idea for this special issue began as a proposal for a double session on the convergences of Eastern and Western Drama for the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in the spring of 2003. Entitled "East Meets West in Drama," these sessions were intended to provide an opportunity to initiate a dialogue and to engage in a broader discussion of an area of drama that had not previously been addressed in a venue of its own at the Congress before. The two-part session, located that year in one of the infrequently used and out-of-the-way buildings on the campus of Western Michigan University (Sangren Hall), drew a modest audience of interested conferees, some more knowledgeable on the subject than others, but all there to share what they knew and to learn more of what they did not know. What became apparent from the active exchange of information and the sharing of firsthand viewing experiences was that another series of sessions would be necessary to continue the discussion we had just initiated. With that in mind, the next year brought further development of the topic, a broadening of its parameters, and a decision to feature mixed-media presentations, one by Max Harris on the Croatian sword dance (written with Lada Cale Feldman) (1) and another by Zvika Serper, which included a live performance.
Two of the essays in this special issue derive from that early beginning--Mikiko Ishii's analysis of weeping mothers in Japanese Noh and early English drama and Serper's discussion of the complementarity of Noh and Kyogen drama. The three other essayists and their topics--Dongchoon Lee on the carnivalesque function of Korean mask dance, Min Tian on the script markings of Chinese Yuan zaju, and Cecilia Pang on the history and development...
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