Between archive and repertoire
Asian Martial Arts in Transcultural Performer Training
Abstract
Asian martial arts constitute an integral part of both traditional Asian and modern international performer training. Particularly important they are in those systems, methods or approaches that aim at educating transcultural, physically (or psychophysically) skilled performers. The focus here is in three contemporary transcultural performer training systems or approaches, namely Yoshi Oida’s, Akira Hino’s and Phillip B. Zarrilli’s, that integrate Asian martial arts in their corpus of exercises and training philosophies. The paper will explore these processes through the concepts of “archive” and “repertoire,” as defined by Diana Taylor in The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing cultural Memory in the Americas (2003). It argues that both Asian martial arts and the transcultural training systems using them negotiate constantly between archive and repertoire and create layers of intertwined interactions that provide material for understanding preservation and transformation of cultural traditions.
