Paper long abstract:

As the final decade of pre-online media entertainment came to an end in the early 2000s, attention to girls’ fashions, culture and postures of defiance vanished along with street fashion and public subculture in its last stand. What arose and has taken attention in the twenty first century have been various animation, ero ge-mu, and boys’ screen and bedroom cultures which have picked up and run the theme of defiance from schoolgirl actors of the 1990s. In this paper we will explore the combatative girl character in cross-dressed male play and virtual shojō avatar livestreaming. This paper will explore the transfer of bombastic girls’ street style in boys parodic cross-dressing, and the re-assemblage of girls’ cute aesthetics as a form of masculine virtual style and resistance in the 2010s.

Paper short abstract:

Politically-oriented monologue in contemporary Japanese performing arts remains an elusive element deserving greater attention. This paper will address monologue and politics in modern and contemporary Japanese theatre using works by notable experimental theatre company Kamome Machine.

Paper long abstract:

Political theatre and politically-oriented monologue in contemporary Japanese performing arts remains a critically elusive element deserving greater attention. This paper will address the subject of monologue and politics in modern and contemporary Japanese theatre using works by notable experimental theatre company Kamome Machine. Kamome Machine, active since 2011, began with a historically important site-specific work of performance, Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, in which excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s play were performed on the edge of the exclusion zone of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster following the Great Tōhoku earthquake. Hagiwara and the company’s lead actor, Honami Shimizu, have backgrounds not only in experimental theatre but also dance and intermedial performance. The company’s sensibilities have been shaped by international post-dramatic trends that stem from post-Heiner Müller and Beckett orientations, but also political and intermedial practices associated with butō, molecular theatre, and other specifically Japanese practices. The latter will receive attention not yet adequately disseminated in contemporary theatre and performance studies at present.

This paper will construct a critical timeline of the company’s activities, from site-specific, to installation sound performance, to theatre-based works, in order to present one outstanding case of a company addressing the often-unclear question of what might constitute political theatre in Japan today through performance experiment. Furthermore, this paper will provide analysis of the most recent production by the company, Oregayo (2022) to articulate directions in politically-engaged performance through the incarnation of historical texts, here the Constitution of Japan. This paper presents the argument that Kamome Machine’s approach to monologue highlights how individual futility can be the foundation for acts of performative incarnation of politically-charged site, text, and history. Simone Weil, a reference point for some of the company’s works, but also Arthur Schopenhauer and Frank Ruda’s pessimistic theories about individual freedom help underscore how contemporary artists in Japan develop work from within ideas of futility.

Paper long abstract:

How does pop performance and its media reflect the deep unresolve of Asia-centered 20the century wars and 21st century war-like attitudes and behavior? What does war have to do with these Japanese youth cultures like J-pop, anime, and video games? Do pop cultures with their saturated mix of dazzle and darkness offer insights into a fervor of collective and individual dedication and devotion to militarization?

Today most people consider pop youth culture such as J-pop and K-pop, anime, and video games to be frothy and inconsequential stuff and dismiss the power of these pop youth cultures within our dynamic global Asia new media world. Youth cultures of the 21st century are global forces with their presence in multiple digital forms from mobile phones to computers and TV. In this presentation I wish to foreground how pop youth cultures deal with our contemporary contexts of everyday war, or what Thomas Lamarre refers to as war/time. I focus on how J-Pop performances and music videos express war/time and transmit a sense of militarized fervor and devotion. I argue that the choreography and dramaturgy of their music videos demonstrate how these artists go beyond metaphor and perform war-like actions. I show how their practices of disciplined movement, rhythm, lyrics, music, visuals, and video editing provide a direct methodology for us, as public witnesses, to recognize the potent power of their everyday war/time performance. I will draw on examples of groups such as Keyakizaka 46, Baby Metal, Tokyo GeGeGay, and Atarashi Gakko.

Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper aimed to analyse the VR version of Kuro Tanino's play "The Dark Master" to enquire about the symbiotic relationship between the audience and the artist, relying on the posthuman practice to fluidly change the perspective by seeing through different eyes.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many performing artists to rethink the way to perform and propose their pieces, relying on technology to continue staying as close as possible to their audiences. In this sense, virtual events have been produced by connecting people to performers who delivered their works on video-sharing platforms and video telecommunication software and services even though the audience would not feel the same human closeness provided by in-person attendance. To technologically recover such a close experience, the employment of virtual reality can be an opportunity to allow the audiences not only to keep in touch with the performers but also to renew the concept of “technoculture” by putting the audience in the actor’s shoes.

By taking into account the VR reworking of the psychiatrist-turned-director/playwright Kuro Tanino’s work “The Dark Master”, the discussion will highlight how the use of technology in theatre can create a symbiotic relationship between the audience and the artist, relying on the posthuman practice to fluidly change the perspective by seeing through different eyes. The analysis of this experimental performance would underline how the implementation of technology in performing arts can lead us to inquire about the aspects of our society and the individual’s conditions under a new viewpoint by thinking of a crisis as an opportunity to question our existence through a technological mindset.