![the sound of one hand clapping koan the sound of one hand clapping koan](https://cdn8.openculture.com/2019/04/21235543/ZenKoans.jpg)
Lynne Kendrick and David Roesner, eds., Theatre Noise (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), x. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-Factor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Wes Folkerth, The Sound of Shakespeare (London: Routledge, 2002), 7.īruce R. Philipp Schweighauser, The Noises of American Literature, 1890–1985: Toward a History of Literary Acoustics (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006). Kelman, “Rethinking the Soundscape: A Critical Genealogy of a Key Term in Sound Studies,” The Senses & Society 5, no. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books 1993).Īri Y. Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 7. Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman, Futurism: An Anthology (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 96–98. Howard Barker, Death, the One and the Art of Theatre (London: Routledge, 2005), 17. States, Great Reckonings in Little Rooms: On the Phenomenology of Theater (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 200. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Īudrey Yoshiko Seo and Stephen Addiss, The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin (Boston, Mass.: Shambhala, 2010), xiii.Īoife Monks, The Actor in Costume (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 136īert O. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. The cartoon lampoons art deemed so esoteric, unconventional, or just plain bad it does not receive public approval-traditionally signaled at the end of a performance by the sound of clapping hands. It does this, one assumes, by bamboozling, frustrating, disregarding, or eschewing a general audience and cultivating gormless devotees instead. 1 Avant-garde theatre is so radical, the cartoon mischievously implies, it goes beyond the sound of one hand clapping (how jejune) and obtains the eminently more achievable, but perhaps less desirable, “sound” of no hands clapping. The cartoon recalls the well-known Zen koan of Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) about the seemingly impossible sound of one hand clapping, which serves in popular discourse as a non sequitur or paradox. The cartoon insinuates the “Avant-Garde Theatre Company” does not have an audience, or if it does, their applause is either withheld or so muted the sound does not travel far.
![the sound of one hand clapping koan the sound of one hand clapping koan](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Publication71/v4/59/d0/2d/59d02d5a-2bbc-f0f1-c453-e7bc780d9eac/source/1200x630bf.jpg)
What is the “sound” of no hands clapping? Silence, presumably. The cartoon caption reads: “Listen, you can hear the sound of no hands clapping…” (Figure I.1). The sign on the door, written in quirky lettering, says “Avant-Garde Theatre Company.” The eavesdropper has the group’s initials on his clothing. The other looks at him with a goofy grin. Evidently, he is trying to discern what is going on inside. The image, which appears on a commercial cartoon website, shows two people standing outside a building. While researching this book I came across an amusing, slightly irksome, cartoon.