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- Convenors:
-
Peter Eckersall
(The Graduate Center CUNY)
Andreas Regelsberger (Trier University)
Thomas Looser (NYU)
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- Stream:
- Performing Arts
- Location:
- Torre B, Piso 2, Sala T6
- Sessions:
- Friday 1 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel will investigate the way that notions of community have evolved in artistic practices in Japan in the past and in the present day.
Long Abstract:
The almost cult-like worshipping of the director, playwright or artist in modern and contemporary Japanese visual and performing arts has often been noticed and contributed to the way that Japanese artistic practices have been perceived (and - arguably - misinterpreted) in the "West".
In this panel we aim to tackle the idea of community regarding different constellations in an historical dimension stretching over different genres, such as Kabuki, Buto, Angura and contemporary visual and performing arts practices. How does the idea of "community" reverberate in these respective groups, practices and forms of expression? How do artistic leaders such as directors, senior artists and producers create and maintain notions of community? How can we understand the hierarchical roles leaders and their disciples play in these constellations? How is "community" reflected in the production process? How do the arts remake expressions of community over time?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 1 September, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper will investigate the way in which "community" in theatre structures of Kabuki and puppet theatre has been constructed in the Edo period.
Paper long abstract:
The role of a central figure in Edo period theatre in Japan - be it actor, theatre director or playwright, was crucial for the success and survival of theatre houses and even entire genres. This paper will investigate the ways in which "community" in theatre structures of Kabuki and puppet theatre has been constructed, communicated and worshipped through different strategies and marketing-like channels.
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at a new centrality given to artists/directors in the creation of community, in a process with newly delimited possibilities. At stake are the idea of an artistic act; the grounds of an artistic object; and the sense of community that might emerge out of this artistic process.
Paper long abstract:
The partnership of Yamaguchi Chikako as a video director for the dancer Kawaguchi Takao might seem counterintuitive: Yamaguchi is an director working with apparently political themes, on behalf of Okinawan island identities and communities, while Kawaguchi is a dancer embodying the more apolitical, placeless butoh dance of Ohno Kazuo. I take this pairing as in fact representative of a fairly fundamental shift in the role of art (and design) currently underway. On the one hand, community itself has not only become one of the ends or aims of art, but also itself an artistic object. On the other hand, in that process, the very ideas of both community and artist /director seem also to be fundamentally shifting, even as they gain new centrality. Starting with the pairing of Yamaguchi and Kawaguchi as an example, this paper looks both at the very specific modes and images of community that are now commonly taking shape, and the idea of an artistic designer or director that goes with these images of community. The claim is that these tendencies are systematic, and the outcome of current conditions especially in Japan and Asia, but also across the globe. The focus is on artists, designer/directors, and arts-based communities especially in Japan and China; in some cases, art direction blurs directly into the imagining of community. At stake are the idea of an artistic act; the grounds of an artistic object; and the sense of community that might (or might not) emerge out of this artistic process.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discussed the questions of how performances made by radical performance communities are challenged and reinterpreted in an age of theatrical re-enactment
Paper long abstract:
Butoh and angura performance evolved as radical artistic communities that were partially aligned with the new left politics of solidarity and protest in 1960s Japan. Training in these forms and performing them for audiences were not seen as separate processes and artists usually identified with a particular troupe, artistic leader and collective process. The notion of the underground theatre community became the norm for the development of contemporary theatre and is to some extent still a visible phenomenon. A greater degree of independence from the 'angura system' is also evident and a number of challenges to its orthodoxy have arisen. Among these is the idea of reproducibility and re-enactment. How does butoh, for example, revive and reinvent itself in a time when its active cultural communities are breaking down? A particular example that has caused consternation is Kawaguchi Takao's About Kazuo Ohno, a work made by a modern dancer with no butoh training who has been 'reliving' Ohno's major works in a performance that is part re-enactment and part documentation of Ohno's oeuvre. About Kazuo Ohno has enjoyed critical success and yet also causes consternation among some spectators for its apparent paradox. Butoh people value the idea of community and muse over choreography and in some instances reject the work of Kawaguchi as an affront to butoh. At the same time, Ohno's works were choreographed and the idea of their authenticity as a production of an artistic community can be challenged. This paper asks if we can re-enact 1960s angura performance communities and what that might mean in artistic and political terms.