Scenography and Social Space: Heterotopia at the Arnaya Theater Festival in China

Abstract

This article examines the Aranya Theater Festival through the lens of Michel Foucault’s heterotopia theory, analyzing its intricate relationship between spatial practices, cultural capital, and class dynamics in contemporary China. Situated within a gated tourist resort, the festival constructs a distinct heterotopic space that challenges conventional theater boundaries while reinforcing social hierarchies. We argue that the festival serves as a hybrid platform where cultural and real estate capital converge, elevating the community’s status while accentuating social divisions. Through an analysis of scenographic practices, audience experience, and spatial politics, this study reveals how such cultural events become instruments of elite distinction rather than democratic cultural engagement. The findings contribute to ongoing debates on urban development, cultural consumption, and spatial justice in China’s neoliberal landscape.

Keywords

scenography in China theater as heterotopia site-specific performance cultural capital gated community spatial politics Aranya Theater Festival

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aronson

(2018). The history and theory of environmental scenography. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Bourdieu

(1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste ( Nice

, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

Chen

(2019). Performing heterotopia: The expansion and construction of urban public space in contemporary Chinese theater practice. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 4, 135–141.

de Certeau

. (1984). The practice of everyday life ( Rendall

, Trans.). University of California Press.

Foucault

(1986). Of other spaces ( Miskowiec

, Trans.). Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27.

Hannah

(2008). Architecture as event. In Hannah

Harsløf

(Eds.), Performance design (pp. 13–24). Museum Tusculanum Press.

Hannah

(2011). Performance design. Museum Tusculanum Press.

Harvey

(2008). The right to the city. New Left Review, 53, 23–40.

Hays

K. M.

(1998). Architecture theory since 1968. MIT Press.

10.

Katsou

(2020). Theatre heterotopias: Sea on stage. Body, Space & Technology, 19(1), 1–16.

11.

Lefebvre

(1991). The production of space ( Nicholson-Smith

, Trans.). Blackwell.

12.

McAuley

(2000). Space in performance: Making meaning in the theatre. University of Michigan Press.

13.

Nietzsche

(1967). The birth of tragedy and the case of Wagner ( Kaufmann

, Trans.). Random House.

14.

Pam

(1975). Murderer, the women’s hope. The Drama Review, 19(3), 5–12.

15.

Pow

C.-P.

(2009). Gated communities in China: Class, privilege and the moral politics of the good life. Routledge.

16.

Rancière

(2009). The emancipated spectator ( Elliott

, Trans.). Verso.

17.

Shang

(2005). The philosophy on spaces: The theory of Foucault’s heterotopias. Tongji University Journal (Social Science Section), 16(3), 18–24.

18.

Shepherd

(2006). Theatre, body and pleasure. Routledge.

19.

Soja

E. W.

(1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Blackwell.

20.

Turner

(2004). Palimpsest or potential space? Finding a vocabulary for site-specific performance. New Theatre Quarterly, 20(4), 9–20.

21.

Zhang

(2010). In search of paradise: Middle-class living in a Chinese metropolis. Cornell University Press.

22.

Zukin

(1995). The cultures of cities. Blackwell.