Performance networks: Indian cultural production in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

In the globalised environment of the twenty-first century, sustainable/successful event production requires a variety of interacting relationships that link producers to the range of resources necessary for their events. These resources may include local and/or international artists, audiences, sponsorship, media, and technical support. These event production networks may last no longer than a single event, or they may persist across multiple events and years. They usually involve a wide range of cultural actors and production relationships. The manner in which individual producers, organisations and cultures construct, use, rearrange and maintain production networks offers insight into how cultures market and represent themselves. This research identifies the processes through which local and global network formations shape Indian cultural performance events in Aotearoa and the consequent images of India that are received/consumed by the wider New Zealand audience. The central research question asks: What are the processes and relationships that support the production of cultural events, with specific reference to events that are of interest to and/or produced by Aotearoa’s Indian communities? This ethnographic study begins with an investigation of a wide range of local and international socio-economic and cultural relationships generated by a number of different kinds of shared interests and identities that determine not only the nature of the events but their relevance to various audiences. Subsequently, it goes on to identify how local and global network formations in Indian culture and the performing arts interact so as to allow the development of events from their conceptual stages into actual productions. Finally, this research develops a model for the graphic representation of stakeholder and resource production networks that analyses the underlying structures and complex socio-economic interactions that enable cultural performances. Taken as a whole, this research demonstrates the centrality of relationship networks as the key to the relative success or failure of the events studied. From the perspective of event production needs, the flexibility and event-specific nature of those networks is made clear. At the same time, it is apparent that there are a range of culturally driven factors that affect event production practice as well as network formation, utilisation and maintenance. Identity and community, feasibility and power emerge as explanatory and analytical themes that help understand the relationships activated to create the networks that are central to the production of events. This study focuses on the pragmatic business of cultural production, often within the context of the music industry. Methodologically, it draws from ethnomusicology, event management, social science and industry practice to achieve a multidisciplinary approach to this applied research project. The rich, thick descriptions provide insight into how Indian communities are represented locally and globally by producers internal and external to the culture being represented. Cultural events are a powerful factor in the visibility of cultural communities and social cohesion. It is the continuous formal and informal processes, systems, structures, and relationships that create sustainable production networks. The findings contribute to a growing literature in the field of event management in which a need to apply phenomenology (hermeneutics) and experiential assessment methods through participant observation and experimental research techniques has been identified as well as the need for ethnographic research that focuses on the event experience. The findings in this research demonstrate that that success is much more than a simple measure of monetary profit, and that the ability to assert authority is imperative to the success of cultural representation across the performance industry.