Forum and intensive lectures at Nanjing University

"Contemporary drama in Japan" /
UCHINO Tadashi (Performing arts, Performance research, University of Tokyo)

This class gives an overview over the aspects of the performing arts, focusing on Japanese drama since the 1960s from the perspective of history of representation and culture. Specifically, the class at first covers as a prehistory the genre called "new theater (jap. shingeki) which had a complex relationship with "Western modernity“. This was a love and hate relationship and had a big influence for the development of shingeki’s self-awareness. Then, while keeping in mind the issues concerned with the relationship between the text extracted from there and the body of the actor, or the performance itself, the class explains, following the broad historical periods the 1960s to the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, and since 2001, the performing art called small theater drama (shogekijo engeki) in the respective periods. Shogekijo engeki focuses mainly on theater that (supposedly) pus the performance and the body of the actor at the center. Using visual materials and contemporary discourses related to representative works as course materials, I hope to make clear what was questioned in these dramas.

1) The prehistory of small theater theater - the system of shingeki and "Western modernity"

2) The era of the body - underground theater and nationalism (Juro Kara, Tadashi Suzuki)

3) Simulacre - Flight and capitalism (Hideki Noda)

4) The invention of realism - The hidden body and the loss of words (Oriza Hirata)

5) To/from the global - the child body and the locality of (Toshiki Okada, Miho Yanaihara)

The authors mentioned in brackets will be discussed in class.

References
＊Uchino Tadashi, Merodorama no gyakushu “watashi engeki” no 1980 nendai （Keiso shobo, 1996）
＊Kan Takayuki, Sengo engeki – shingeki wa norikoeraretaka （Asahi Shimbunsha, 1981）
＊Kara Juro, Tokkenteki nikutairon （Hakusuisha, 1997）
＊Suzuki Tadashi, Engeki towa nanika （Iwanami shinsho, 1988）
＊Senda Akihiko (ed.), Gekiteki runessansu – gendai engeki wa kataru （Riburopoto, 1983）
＊Senda Akihiko, Nihon no gendai engeki （Iwanami shinsho, 1995）
＊Senda Akihiko, Gekidan - gendai engeki no choryu （Shogakkan, 2001）
＊Hirata Oriza, Hirata Oriza no shigoto 1 - gendai kogo engeki no tame ni (Banseisha, 1995）
＊Watanabe Moriaki, Engeki to wa nanika （Kodansha gakujutsu bunko, 1990）