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Position:Home>Theater & Acting> Do poor Countries have Musicals?Question: Do poor Countries have Musicals!? We have Andrew Lloyd Webber on the BBC touting musical theatre but what have other countries got in place of this type of entertainment!? Does the rest of the world - China, South America, Africa - have musicals!? Or is it just a Western idea!?
Do poor countries have musicals!? And what's the most bizarre one!?Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Theater exists in almost every single country, even if it's only in the form of celebrating ancestors and coming together as a neighborhood to sing and dance!. There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang Dynasty; they often involved music, clowning and acrobatic displays!. The Tang Dynasty is sometimes known as "The Age of 1000 Entertainments"!. During this era, Ming Huang formed an acting school known as the The Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical!. That is why actors are commonly called "Children of the Pear Garden!." During the first years of colonization, the fathers of the Companhia de Jesus, the Jesuits, who came to Brazil, had as their main purpose the catechization of the Indians!. They found in the Brazilian tribes a natural inclination for music, dance, and oratory, or rather positive tendencies toward the development of theater, which went on to be used as an instrument of "civilization" and of religious education, in addition to diversion!. The theater, by the fascination of the representative image, was much more effective than a sermon, for example!. The first plays, thus, were written by the Jesuits, who made use of elements of the indigenous culture, from the character of "sacred," which the Indians had already absorbed into their culture, to the Indians talking about the things they knew!. Mixed into those elements were the dogmas of the Catholic Church, in order that the Jesuits not lose their objective—catechism!. In regards to South Africa!.!. with the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa in 1994, a new era dawned for the theatre in that nation!. As proof, there was Mama! The Musical of Freedom, a 1995 work by the Zulu playwright, composer, director, and choreographer Mbongeni Ngema!. Mama! was based on Ngema’s experiences with Committed Artists, a theatre troupe he founded in Johannesburg in 1983; it was a story about the youngsters who joined the troupe, and the determined title character from the all-black urban complex Soweto was based on Mandela’s wife, Winnie, who had helped Committed Artists!. Most of all, Mama! was packed with songs and vivacious dancing!. If some of the purportedly Zulu-inspired music resembled contemporary African-American music, and if the dancers included one Indian and three white women, these too reflected the changes in today’s South Africa!. After a six-week run in Durban, Mama! went on tour to Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands!. Mama! was the first nonpolitical production for Ngema, whose previous works reflected the spirit of South Africa’s blacks under apartheid!. Born in Natal, South Africa, in 1955, Ngema worked as a manual labourer and guitarist before he began acting in local theatre groups in the late 1970s!. With actor Percy Mtwa he wrote the satirical play Woza Albert! (1981), which imagines the second coming of Christ, this time in South Africa; the government first tries to exploit him and then banishes him to a notorious prison for blacks!. Ngema’s next show, the musical Asinamali! (1983), dealt with police violence, forced separations from families, and constricting racist laws as experienced by five prisoners; soon after it opened, police raided a performance and arrested Ngema’s actors!. Despite its serious theme, Asinamali! is filled with music and comedy!. I always thought this musical from China was odd: http://www!.i-am-bored!.com/bored_link!.cfm!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Well, seeing that China is not exactly a poor country (they are hosting the Olympics this year) and there are a lot of latino/latina stars, acting can be done anywhere!. My family and their friends decided to make a production of "The Producers" (I was Leo Bloom =)) and we entertained a lot of people and donated all our proceeds to a local charity (that was in the Philippines which is not poor, but not rich either)!. There are also 25+ musical productions every year!. Musicals can be performed anywhere, its just a matter of getting people to act and sing and getting people to watch!.Www@QuestionHome@Com i dout it because they r to poor to have a theater and cant pay a directorWww@QuestionHome@Com |