Presentations

The subject of modern Japanese “overflowing bodies” obscures the demarcation of performance order, whether ‘universal’ or ‘local.’ On the one hand, if we would stand on the position derived from the philosophical quest to discover what the body is and how it is represented, bodies and performances should not be categorised according to ethnicities. Bodies are unconstrained by the parameters of a specific races and cultures to the extent that they have universal essences for all human beings in universal culture. On the other hand, the concept of ‘locality’ of bodies and performances is based on an artistic approach that finds style in endemic and indigenous bodies and body movements, favouring an eccentric, unsophisticated, and premodern or local or ‘rural’ location. Performers or performance groups quite often find their artistic identities in personal or separate consciousness based on the specific site and tradition. Taking the examples of various Japanese bodies in European site, we will open discussion for all participants who may have any interest in the permanency or transformation of bodies and performances irrespective of Japanese contexts.

演劇の公共性の意味，実状，あり方を論じた．まず，各パネリストは，「価値観を共有する仕掛け」（米屋）として，（１）それぞれが「公共性」という言葉をどのような意味・視点で使うかということを明らかにした．次に，（２）演劇に特有の公共性について，それぞれの立場から報告した．三番目として（３）公共セクター（国や自治体）は演劇とどのように関わるべきかという問題について論じた．演劇の公共性と劇場の公共性は分けて考えるべきという意見（藤野），公共性は程度の問題（米屋）という有益な知見も得られた

演劇の公共性についての基調講演．永田靖日本演劇学会会長，毛利三彌日本下劇学会元会長と共に，演劇の公共性を論じる意味について講演した．

鈴木美穂「憑依のダイナミックス??演劇論としてのキャリル・チャーチル『小鳥が口一杯』」代表討論者として，当該論文の問題点を指摘した．

PSi #21 Fluid States 2015 Tohokuの概要と，パーフォーマンス．スタディズの日本の演劇研究の実状についての講演，

なぜ演劇研究の場で「天皇」を問題にするか （1）天皇制を演劇的視点から見る時，天皇制はどのような構造―どのような形態と機能―を持っているのか？〈天皇／民衆〉が見る存在である共に見られる存在であったとすれば，天皇制をパフォーマンスとして見ることは，翻って〈舞台／観客〉という演劇の構造を考えることになる． （2）象徴としての天皇と人間としての天皇の併存という二元構造が天皇制の基本構造だとすれば，「象徴」としての存在と「人間」としての存在を媒介するものは何か？これは翻って演劇における，記号としての劇人物と現実としての俳優の関係を考えることになる． （3）ヨーロッパの君主制における王権の表象と日本の天皇制における天皇表象に違いがあるのか？　演劇に現れた「君主」像の違いとその影響関係を見ることで，文化の中での演劇作品の変容と，特に，現代において日本で生み出された演劇作品の特徴を見ることができる．

Hijikata Tatsumi (1928-1986), one of the founders of Butoh and the most celebrated avant-gardists in Japan’s post World War II period, choreographed the Three Witches in Macbeth at the Nikkei Hall Theatre in Tokyo, 1972. This collaboration by a pioneer of a newly created performance genre with a Western classical dramatic piece is significant for two reasons. Firstly, it shows the vertical stratification of the interpretation of supernatural power and its expression in the history of Shakespearean production. With the choreography focused on the corporeality of the Three Witches, Hijikata newly presented figures with the senses and feelings experienced by the “undomesticated” bodies of malevolent creatures. Secondly, this choreography might have symbolic and substantial value for understanding the creation of Butoh. After a four-year hiatus from Nikutai-no-Hanran in 1968, Hosotan was produced based on Hijikata’s basic concept around Tôhoku in 1972. Hijikata clearly paid much attention to Shakespearean witches as both invisible forces and malevolent indigenous creatures.

This panel was planned by the research group “Portfolio Butoh” based on the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive in Keio University. After my preliminary explanation around Tohoku images, titled “Epiphanies of Tōhoku Avant-garde: Modernity and Indigenousness of Post-war Japan,” each presenter will read about 20 minutes paper and then will have Q & A session. This panel is also a part of introduction of Tōhoku cluster of PSi in 2015.

小菅隼人(慶応大学)、竹村登茂子(読売新聞大阪本社文化・生活部長)、林公子(近畿大学) 　近年の橋下大阪市長が主導する「観客連動方式」による文楽助成金削減は、大きな社会的衝撃を与えた。同時に、大阪が世界に誇る文化遺産である文楽を単に観客数、競争原理だけで割り切っていいのか、という疑問の声も広く巻き起こった。日本演劇学会は演劇研究の専門家集団として、今回の大会で特にこの問題のセッションを置き、討論することとした。文楽助成金削減問題をずっと追いかけ記事にしてきた読売新聞大阪本社文化・生活部長竹村登茂子氏を招き、西洋演劇専攻だがこの問題に強い関心を持つ小菅隼人会員、文楽など近世演劇専攻の林公子会員がパネラーを担当する。

Ohno Kazuo (1906-2010), one of Butoh founders and the most celebrated performer in the Japanese post World War II period, gained international acclaim after presenting his magnum opus, Admiring La Argentina at 1980 Nancy International Theatre Festival. He, however, had also been giving many performances and workshops outside of theatres, such as in hospitals, in the church at Christmas Mass and in the university campus as well as in dance laboratories. It may be argued that, for Ohno, Butoh is neither confined within permanent theatres nor categorized into modern dance but is a performance style based on philosophical and emotional sentiments connected with the anti-establishment and anti-traditional aestheticism. In this presentation, taking his workshops and performances in the university lecture room, another impact and function of Butoh will be considered: Ohno Kazuo performed for educational purposes for freshman-students at Keio University’s festival for 7 years. This project in Keio was proposed as a way to relax the tension of the freshman students who had concentrated their attentions only on the entrance examination and then to lead them to have more flexible attitudes to their ideas and future possibilities. More than 500 excited students, many of whom had never experienced Butoh, gathered each year for the performance, which became quite successful. This tradition has been carried on until now by many leading Butoh dancers such as Waguri Yukio, Yamamoto Moe, Murobushi Koh, Iwana Masashi, Nagaoka Yuri, Bishop Yamada and Kasai Akira. In the context of the conference’s theme, “re-routing performance” Ohno Kazuo’s performances beyond theatres must be worthwhile as a subject for a discussion about the re-routing/re-rooting of the value of contemporary performance and educational possibilities of Butoh and the unique functions they have established.

In this PSi-Praxis, we will present a 50 minutes film screening of a Butoh performance held at Keio University in 2010, a collaborative project between Kasai Akira, a Butoh dancer, and Yoshimasu Gozo, a leading Japanese poet. In addition to the screening, we will give some explanatory remarks about the concept of the project on the university campus, introductions about Kasai Akira and Yoshimasu Gozo, and a discussion about modern expansions of Butoh outside of permanent theatres; then, we will have an open discussion with participants about the meaning and possibility of the “educational” and “temporal” nature of the Butoh performance. Kasai Akira (1943- ), one of Japan’s Butoh founders with Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo, and who claims to be the first dancer that titled his dance as “Butoh,” said that Butoh should not be categorized as dance but rather by the attitude or spirit of the dancer to his or her own body. He suggests, moreover, that Butoh is an “art of the spirit” as well as an art of the body, so that classical Western Ballet and traditional Japanese dance could become Butoh. Probably, his remarks could be taken to suggest that Butoh is neither confined within permanent theatres nor categorized into modern dance but is a performance style based on philosophical and emotional sentiments connected with the anti-establishment and anti-traditional aestheticism Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo discovered. It might be said that Butoh performances have an ephemeral and fluid nature in terms of both style and function. In fact, Ohno Kazuo performed for educational purposes for freshman-students at Keio University’s festival for 7 years. This project was proposed as a way to relax the tension of the freshman students who had concentrated their attentions only on the entrance examination and then to lead them to have more flexible attitudes to their ideas and future possibilities. More than 500 excited students, many of whom had never experienced Butoh, gathered each year for the performance, which became quite successful. This tradition has been carried on by many leading Butoh dancers such as Waguri Yukio, Yamamoto Moe, Murobushi Koh, Iwana Masashi, Nagaoka Yuri, Bishop Yamada and Kasai Akira. The Butoh performance projected in this Praxis was originally held in the open space at Keio University, Yokohama, in the evening of June 30th, 2010, titled “Sphere, Flashing Souls—Requiem”, a collaboration of Kasai and Yoshimasu, and dedicated to the Butoh giant, Ohno Kazuo, who had died a month earlier at 103 years of age. In this extraordinary performance, Kasai Akira danced energetically on and off the stage, moving around the auditorium, while Yoshimasu was kneeling on the stage-floor in a formal position reading his poem “Ancient Astronomical Observatory.” Their collaboration proceeded mostly with the two performers maintaining a reasonable distance between each other but sometimes getting intertwined very closely to the extent that the space was transformed to tightly bind the artistic community with audience-participation. This performance is worthwhile not only as a collaborative Butoh with a high degree of perfection but also as a subject for a discussion of the PSi-Praxis about the temporality and educational possibilities of Butoh performances outside of theatres and the unique functions they have to make new communities.

《シンポジウム》ことばの有効性(チカラ)――政治・メディア・文学 小菅隼人：「言葉の有効性―大惨事に際して演劇がしてきたこと・できること・すべきこと」．（１）大震災を経験して，「演劇の上演環境」の観点から見えてきたこと．（２）大震災を経験して，「演劇の有効性」の観点から見えてきたこと．（３）上記二つの観点から，演劇研究がすべきこと．