Japanese Performing Arts Resource Center, September 2005

Abstract

This is an archive copy, from September 2005, of the Japanese Performing Arts Resource Center prototype.

The Global Performing Arts Consortium (GloPAC) is beginning to develop Performing Arts Resource Centers (PARCs), which combine scholarly content with technological sophistication to create interactive, innovative, and interpretive Web-based learning environments designed to advance the teaching and study of the performing arts. Each PARC will have a specific focus, which may be geographic (Japan), temporal (turn of the 20th century), ethnic (Afro-American), thematic (feminist theatre), or audience oriented (teens). The resources on these sites will use individual materials that are stored and fully described in the Global Performing Arts Database (GloPAD), which will provide further opportunity for contextual research.

The Japanese Performing Arts Resource Center (JPARC) contains resources for the study of the traditional theatres of Japan and is GloPAC's initial prototype PARC. It was originally developed in 1999 by Karen Brazell, GloPAC Director and Goldwin Smith Graduate Professor of Japanese Literature and Theatre at Cornell University; Monica Bethe, GloPAC consultant and Professor at Otani University, Tokyo; and Cornell student assistants Tang Fang '99, architecture; Mien Wang, BFA '99 in painting and printmaking; and Thomas Lento '00, Asian studies. Joshua Young and Kumiko McKee, GloPAC Research Associates, have added to and edited certain pages within the site since its initial set up.

JPARC currently includes an interactive play script, a digital video of a biwa performance, a dynamic slide show on costuming, and a 3-D noh stage, as well as a multi-layered glossary and an index of translations, and primarily focuses on noh theatre at this time. An advisory committee has been formed to develop a more sophisticated JPARC, one that incorporates more advanced technologies, in-depth scholarly content, and Japanese performance genre.