23. April 2013, 16.00 - 20.00 Uhr
Ostasiatisches Seminar der FU Berlin, Ehrenbergstr. 26-28, 14195 Berlin

 

Takahashi Shinya (Chūō- University, Tōkyō): Japanisches Theater nach Fukushima im Kontext der Kultur des Tōhoku

Nach der dreifachen Katastrophe in Tōhoku versuchen japanische Dramatiker, Regisseure und andere Künstler im Anschluss an die kulturelle Tradition Nordostjapans neue Kunstwerke zu schaffen. Sie leisten damit sowohl Trauerarbeit als auch Kritik an der aktuellen sozialen und politischen Lage in Japan. Der Vortrag soll beispielhaft für einen solchen Ansatz neben das Theaterstück Ashita Kanashibetsu de (Morgen treffen wir uns in Kanashibetsu) des Dramatikers und Regisseurs Kuramoto Sō analysieren und dabei zeigen, welch wichtige Rolle Texte lokaler Autoren wie Inoue Hisashi, Miyazawa Kenji, oder Terayama Shūji für die Trauerarbeit spielen.

 

Barbara Geilhorn (Freie Universität Berlin): Between trauma processing and social critique – theatrical positions after the triple disaster

Right after March 11, there were few performances that did not take the disaster into account in some way. Directors changed parts of their productions, actors and playwrights organized charity performances in Japan and overseas, and theater companies toured evacuation centers and temporary housing. A few months later the first plays responding to the disaster were put on stage. How can theater address the catastrophe and it aftermath appropriately? Are there privileged forms of representation? To tackle these questions I will analyze selected plays focusing on Okada Toshiki‘s Current Location, 2012.

 

Peter Eckersall (University of Melbourne): Imagining maximum disaster

Faced with what the Japanese theatre critic Otori Hidenaga calls: ‘the endless overwhelming images of disaster’, art may seems prosaic and powerless. Yet nuclear engineer Goto Masashi argues that: ‘each time an accident occurs, imagination about the maximum disaster scale is required’. This paper considers two artistic responses to the Fukushima accident, Chim↑Pom’s Real Times and Hirata Oriza’s robot theatre play Sayonara II. It will be argued that imagination in these works is not empathic but spatial; to borrow from David Fancy, they mobilise the ‘geo-performative’. They occupy spaces of disaster intervening through a consideration of loss, citizen anger, and the radical hope of reconstruction.

 

Takahashi Shinya is Professor of German Studies at Chūō-University, Tōkyō, and currently a Fellow of the International Research Centre „Interweaving Performance Cultures“ at Freie Universität Berlin.

Barbara Geilhorn is a research fellow/lecturer in Japanese Studies at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin.

Peter Eckersall is Associate Professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne and currently a Fellow of the International Research Centre „Interweaving Performance Cultures“ at Freie Universität Berlin.