Forum and intensive lectures at Nanjing University

"Running between East and West - The dancing body in the 20th century " /
DE VOS, Patrick (Theory of Performing Arts and French Theater, University of Tokyo)

This course focuses on the “body”, which is a remarkable opportunity in the cultural representations of the 20th century, from the perspective of the performing arts. Specifically, the lecture pays attention to the group of works by Václav Nijinsky and Tatsumi Hijikata, two dancers and choreographers who were acting in a completely different context, with regard to era as well as culture, and analyze how they anticipated or highlighted the disruption of the body culture of their age. Furthermore the course questions what these two performing artists, in their different ways, were questioning with the dismantling and reconsidering of the representations of the body based on the visual sense which had become dominant with the development of modern civilization, and the myth of the "body" lying at the base of Western (Christian) culture. This was among others a search for new ways of sexuality, movement, community and history. These aspects will be shown during the course by looking at actual visual materials.

1) Change of theater culture in the era of replication technology

2) The rediscovery of body movements and the crisis of rhythm

3) Nijinsky's “Rite of Spring” - a revolution

4) "victim" - dramaturgy of the body: Nijinsky and Hijikata

5) From the narrating body to a narrative of the body:
    Tatsumi Hijikata’s “Nikutai no hanran”, and the revolt of “Hosotan”

6) Issues with the global development of "Ankoku "

References
1. Vaslav Nijinsky, The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky (Unexpurgated)
2. Antonin Artaud, The theatre and its double (translated from the French by Mary Caroline Richards.
    New York: Grove Press, c1958) (le théâtre et son double, Paris: Gallimard).
3. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l'invisible, Gallimard.
4. Laurence Louppe, Poétique de la danse contemporaine, Contredanse, 2000.
5.Hijikata Tatsumi, In Prison (and other texts), translated by N. Kurihara,
    in Drama Review (The), N ° 165, New-York, spring 2000.
6. Sally Banes, Terpsichore in sneakers: post-modern dance, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
7.Odette Aslan (dir.), Butô (s). Paris: CNRS, 2002.
8. Antonin Artaud: Engeki to sono bunshin (Antonin aruto chosakushu 1),
    translated by Shinya Ando, Hakusuisha, Tokyo,1996, 247pp
9. Tatsumi Hijikata: Hijikata Tatsumi zenshu, Kawade shobo shinsha, 2005, 2 books
10. Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in Kawasaki, Keio University Arts Center (ed.), Hijikata Tatsumi no buto:
    nikutai no shururearizumu shintai no ontoroji, Keio University Press, Tokyo, 2004, 198 pp
11. Kazuko Kuniyoshi, Yume no isho kioku no tsubo: buyo to modanizumu, Shinshokan, Tokyo, 2002
12. Yoko Yamaguchi, odoru shintaino shigaku: moderune no buyo hyosho, Nagoya University Press, Nagoya, 2006, 313, 69pp
13. Sho Suzuki, Nijinsky – kami no doke, Shinshokan, Tokyo, 1998