The Taiwanese minsu yizhen in temple festivals: Power, presentation, and representation (China)

This dissertation focuses on folk performance troupes (minsu yizhen) in processions of the gods in Taiwanese temple festivals. It argues that Taiwanese rural and grassroots communities, through mimetic performances and collective ritual practices, produce a heterogeneous folk culture in the context of modern Taiwanese society. The dissertation is based on field research conducted in Yunlin and Tainan of southern Taiwan in 1997. The fieldwork focuses on four temple festivals and periodical processions of three major deities---the Goddess of the Sea (Maze), the Plague Lords (Wangye), and the God of Medicine (Baosheng Dadi), as well as observations in Taipei and Nantou in 1993 and 1995 and in Taipei, Mioali, and Tainan in 1997. The field research includes observation, interviews with temple committee members, and conversations with participants and performers, in addition to documentation using still photography and video recording.; The dissertation begins by placing Taiwanese temple festivals and the folk entertainment troupes and communal ritual practices associated with them in their historical context in order to show how these practices are shaped and respond to changing political pressures. Taiwanese grassroots ideas of collective contest (daodin) and chaotic fun (naore ) play an important role in the performance aesthetics and ritual efficacy of Taiwanese festivals and help to make them sites of resistance. The tradition of ritual procession has also functioned to strengthen local solidarities and articulate them with one another through competition among temples for power.; The dissertation then documents and analyzes specific festival processions and performances of folk troupes related to such deities as the Goddess of the Sea, the Plague Lords, and the God of Medicine. The analysis focuses on the power of performance as an embodiment of belief and value and the role of folk performance as a tactical approach in a contested cultural field.; The goal of this dissertation is to reveal the relationship between emergent, residual, and contestatory aspects of Taiwanese folk religious culture and to show how folk performance troupes associated with religious festivals intensify Taiwanese grassroots cultural identities, define boundaries, and contest official cultures.