{"id":39,"date":"2016-06-14T17:42:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T17:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/?p=39"},"modified":"2016-09-07T21:43:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T21:43:58","slug":"where-settings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/uncategorized\/where-settings\/","title":{"rendered":"Where: Settings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The location of an event likely shades how audience members respond to a performance’s content, especially in regard to matters of authenticity. The Sultan’s Palace of Yogyakarta (Indonesia Palace<\/a>) provides tourists exposure to a living cultural institution. Any performing arts activity conveniently arranged for tourists to encounter during their visit to the palace takes place in traditional, multi-purpose structures and with an attenuated sense of “production.” This particular encounter site exudes an aura of authenticity and history, and the “producers” appear to judiciously avoid constructing a presentation that could be construed as a “show.” The site of the Ottoman Military Music event (Turkey Ottoman<\/a>)–the national military museum on the grounds of the military college–is a somewhat similar context in that it is an institution in which a distinctive way of life is perpetuated and celebrated. Authenticity is communicated in the second performance of the\u00a0Croatia<\/a>\u00a0film\u00a0through far more modest but nonetheless powerful spatial associations–a private residence located in a remote mountain village invites associations with the bucolic lifeways of European peasants. The Kandyan Arts Centre, which consists of a large crafts workshop and salesroom in addition to the Arts Association Hall in which the documented performance takes place (Sri Lanka<\/a>), is situated a short walk from Sri Lanka’s most significant Buddhist religious site. Although the Centre is arguably more a commercial than a cultural institution, its placement, so close to the temple in which an important relic of the Buddha resides, invites tourists to interpret what they experience there as being culturally deep.<\/p>\n

Cultural encounters are oftentimes sited in restaurants, where culinary and performance offerings simultaneously envelop the tourists’ senses of sight, sound, and taste. Even though such settings are clearly commercial establishments that are purposefully designed to accommodate simultaneously a stage presentation and the serving and eating of food–in other words, the spaces themselves bear no cultural significance–they are in many instances situated in close proximity to sites of tremendous cultural gravity. Although the immediate settings of the Cambodia<\/a> and Burma<\/a> shows are purpose-built and privately-owned restaurants, both are in close proximity to archaeological wonders–the expansive temple complex of Angkor Wat and the thousands of temples of Bagan, respectively. The mighty Nile River, upon which the specially designed restaurant barge that is the site of the Egypt<\/a> show navigates, cannot be easily separated from millennia of fascinating cultural history. The close proximity of these cultural dinner shows to noteworthy natural, archaeological, and historical sites quite possibly colors audience reception and assessment of the programmed cultural works.<\/p>\n

Some cultural shows take place in specially designed, purpose-built, high-tech performance spaces where any sense of authenticity must emanate from sources other than the site itself. The nighttime spectacle at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii<\/a> is a good example of this sort of setting. A grand open-air theatre capable of seating a few thousand spectators and outfitted with sophisticated lighting and sound systems is but one component of a huge theme park which is itself a manufactured site meant to create the illusion of authenticity in its compact and convenient portrayal of seven Polynesian cultures. On a more intimate scale is the site of the purpose-built performance space for the Ramayana Ballet performance in Yogyakarta (Indonesia Dance<\/a>). Both of these settings–the Polynesian Cultural Center and the “Tourist Palace” in Yogyakarta–might be thought of as quintessentially “post-tourist” in character, sites at which audience members can unabashedly enjoy an entertaining show unencumbered by concerns of authenticity.<\/p>\n

The setting in Sirkeci train station of the Mevlevi Sufi “ceremony” encounter (Turkey Dervishes<\/a>) is a challenging one to unpack. Sufi groups have their own spaces in which to carry out their spiritual practices, and the central train station of Istanbul is not one of them. Perhaps it is just for practical reasons–to accommodate the size of audiences they have come to draw–that they rent an unused waiting room in the station. Or, perhaps, the historical noteworthiness of this particular space–it was the first-class waiting room for the famed Orient Express at its Eastern terminus–is being strategically tapped into by the producers of this encounter. So it is uncertain as to how this setting might effect audience perceptions of what is being presented. The producers capitalized on the site’s historical significance when advertising the event but not during the event itself, where every effort was made to focus the audience’s attention on the spiritual nature of the presentation.<\/p>\n

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The location of an event likely shades how audience members respond to a performance’s content, especially in regard to matters of authenticity. The Sultan’s Palace of Yogyakarta (Indonesia Palace) provides tourists exposure to a living cultural institution. Any performing arts activity conveniently arranged for tourists to encounter during their visit to the palace takes place … Continue reading “Where: Settings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-menu-items","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetter.sites.grinnell.edu\/tourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}