{"id":196,"date":"2017-10-02T17:21:17","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T14:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/?p=196"},"modified":"2021-10-19T14:18:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T11:18:54","slug":"the-twentieth-century-myanmar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/the-twentieth-century-myanmar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Twentieth Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the early 19th<\/sup> century the British first gained control of Southern Burma, converting Rangoon (Yangon) into a Western-style colonial centre. In 1866 they finally extended their dominion to Upper Burma. Partly because of the uncompromising attitude of Thibaw, the last king of Burma, the British used violent means to gain power. The court was almost completely destroyed toward the end of the 19th<\/sup> century. The fate of the court tradition was sealed when the enormous wooden palace complex of Mandalay with its court theatre burned down in the final stages of World War II.<\/p>\n

By this time Burmese court theatre and dance had given rise to a thriving folk tradition, which still partly reflected the ideals of the court. Western culture, introduced by the British, had a strong effect on Burma. In the early years of King Thibaw\u2019s reign, Western theatre groups had performed for the king himself, and Burma was possibly one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to have a Western-type theatre with a proscenium stage, backdrops and a curtain. This type of stage was imitated even by the marionette theatre, of course, in mini size. A general trend of secularisation now permitted the surviving court forms to be performed to ordinary audiences and live actors to perform even in plays based on the Jataka<\/i> stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\t\t