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Graduate Student Seminar on :
Tang-Ki Spirit Medium Worship
Date: |
8 October 2009 |
Location: |
Research Clusters Meeting Room A |
Organized by Religion Research Cluster, FASS, NUS.
Speaker:
- Dr. Margaret Chan, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
- About the Speaker: Dr. Margaret Chan received her PhD in Performance Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her MA (Performance Studies) was awarded with distinction by the Central School of Speech and Drama, London. Dr. Chan was awarded the UK Overseas Research Scholarship and also the Thomas Holloway (Founder) Scholarship to read for her PhD. She also holds a Certificate of Teaching, Higher Education (Distinction) Royal Holloway, University of London. Her first degree was in Business Administration from the University of Singapore. Dr. Chan’s research interest is in the field of Chinese spirit medium worship and Chinese Popular Religion. Her book, Ritual is Theatre, Theatre is Ritual: Chinese Spirit Medium Worship published by the Wee Kim Wee Centre, SMU and SNP Research represents a seminal investigation into the practice of tang-ki spirit medium worship, a signifying cultural practice of the Hokkien people. Dr. Chan is a pioneer of English Language Theatre in Singapore and was a journalist. She is Practice Asst Professor of Theatre/Performance Studies in the School of Social Sciences in SMU.
Abstract:
- Tang-ki [Hokkien spirit-medium] worship is the oldest and youngest of Chinese religions. The origin of the ritual theatre can be traced to pre-Chinese animist tribes who lived in the Hokkien area of China more than 5,000 years ago. Yet tang-ki worship is very much alive today in Singapore. In tang-ki worship it is believed that gods incarnate through medium possession to battle evil spirits. The ritual-theatre is actively practised within the communities of the Hokkien diaspora in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Presently, the worship is suppressed in Fujian, but there is clear evidence that the practice is being imported back to its ‘motherland’. Tang-ki worship has been called Popular Religion. This is because the worship is continually evolving to meet the needs of its people. The religion does not have a canon or dogma. The worship is neither institutionalised nor organised. It is practised in small splintered cults, each with their own coterie of tang-kis or mediums. Every cult has ideas of their own, though what they perform is linked by a loose ritual framework handed down through the generations by word-of-mouth. Free of all restrictions and prescriptions, the rituals of tang-ki worship are easily improvised upon to provide worshippers with what they want. Tang-ki worship was throughout its history, and is still today, a religion of the disenfranchised that is despised as superstitious practices by the ruling elite schooled in rationalism. Yet the worship should not be so summarily dismissed. Investigations need to be made to answer why a ‘living dinosaur’ of ritual-theatre, which features primitive ideas of self-mortification and blood-letting, is still relevant today.
Please email Rodney Sebastian: fasrodn{at}nus{dot}edu{dot}sg if you are interested in attending .
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