Light lunch will be provided at 12pm before the panel discussion starts at 12:15pm.
Monday, April 8, 2024
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific Time)
Bunche Hall, Rm 10383 & online
This panel discusses the dynamics of cultural identity preservation within indigenous and refugee groups in Southeast Asia through traditional music, dance, and performance. The discourse navigates the significance of these art forms in promoting unity and celebrating cultural heritage, assessing how they anchor communities to their ancestral pasts and reinforce connections amid the trials of modernity and diaspora. Moreover, the dialogue explores the utilization of these cultural expressions by displaced communities as tools for resistance, identity affirmation, and the construction of transnational networks. With a foundation in ethnographic research, the panel underscores the integral role of performance in both activism and the cementing of community bonds among refugee demographics.
The panel aims to illustrate the tenacity of these cultural traditions, highlighting their indispensable contribution to the continuity and dynamism of Southeast Asian cultural plurality in the face of global pressures. Integrating scholarly and experiential insights, the panel aims to deepen the comprehension of indigeneity in Southeast Asia, exploring how these cultural expressions are redefined and reshaped by modern challenges, and emphasizing the persistent relevance of cultural preservation in enriching the region’s cultural landscape.
Panelists:
Tani Sebro is an Associate Professor of Global Politics at Cal Poly Humboldt. Her scholarly work addresses the relationship between nationalism, aesthetics, and mobility among Tai (Shan) refugees who have fled from Burma to Northern Thailand. Through long-term and in-depth ethnographic research along the Thai-Burma border, she examines how minority refugees from Myanmar maintain transnational networks through the use of performance, activism, and humanitarianism. As a practitioner of dance (she study Ballet/Middle Eastern/Indian/Tai/Thai), she engages her research community is through practice and performance. Her in-progress book manuscript, Aesthetic Nationalism: The Dance of War and Exile along the Thai-Myanmar Border, is based on embedded field research in Northern Thailand, where she conducted ethnographic and archival research with exiled Tai (Shan) performers and dancers from Myanmar.
Bernard Ellorin teaches at San Diego Miramar College. He has over 30 years or experience conducting fieldwork research on the performance of indigenous Philippine music both in the Philippines and the diaspora. His current research is on how diasporic communities recreate the sense of connection to their indigenous roots through the arts. He looks at the staging process of cultural musics and dances of the Muslim societies in the southern Philippines. Analyzing the artistic choices of cultural practitioners, he examines the influence of tourism and the influences of staging practices coming from the government-sponsored entities. This in turn influences the diasporic Filipino Americans to emulate stage performances in their own cultural productions espousing to promote cultural arts from underserved communities.
Moderator: Stephen Acabado (UCLA)
Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies