Biopower of Artists: Training Logics of Cantonese Opera as Cultural Heritage in Hong Kong

Abstract

We live, according to Foucauldian theorists, in a power relations, where we understand our individual opportunities and limitations as such an insightful way to open up the problem of self, with which to afford people in constant productive positions with practical knowledge in survival. How do artists be subjected for disciplinary in the politics of art sustainability? In what way artists are being trained to rationalize dominate discourse of new knowledge for sustainable development? With what consequences for the performing art knowledge system when huge amount of government fund is flowing in? These questions set a framework of analysis in the Cantonese Operatic art industry in Hong Kong, and its current institutional changes to teacher-student relationship in tertiary education. Along with the development of Foucauldian studies, Nikolas Rose attempts to analysis power relationship in a way to revitalize the creative and active life by “governing at a distance”. This research aims to shed light on this arm’s length governing concept in the power relationship between the government, the realm of discipleship, the new educational system and their trained artists. This paper found that the younger generations of artists are subjected to be “saviours” and "experts" for the fading Chinese heritage yet remain half-fledged as far as concerned by the industry. At the time when the traditional group is resisting by the emerging artists, power is reasserting itself through the ‘modernized’ ideals of knowledge that render 'incapacitated' experts on subsidies, hindering the sustainable development of the tradition heritage.



Author Information
Isabella Siu-wai Yun, University of Hong Kong School of Professional and Continuing Education, Hong Kong SAR

Paper Information
Conference: ACAH2024
Stream: Arts - Arts Policy

This paper is part of the ACAH2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Yun I. (2024) Biopower of Artists: Training Logics of Cantonese Opera as Cultural Heritage in Hong Kong ISSN: 2186-229X – The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities 2024 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 121-129) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-229X.2024.11
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-229X.2024.11


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon