This valuable and fascinating study deals primarily with selected works of post-shingeki (angura) theatre and butō, while also considering related aspects of film and photography. The focus is the period from around 1967 to 1984, with excursions into both pre-war and contemporary aesthetics in order to consider the ways that this seminal period differs from and is also related to Japan's past and present. Due to a sophisticated use of Japanese concepts and terms, it is evident that the intended audience is composed of scholars already familiar with Japanese performance and art.
Sas is interested in the ways that ‘the specters of nation and national origin haunt works that deal . . . with the dislocation of the subject and the (limited, but ever hopeful) striving toward such values as connection, freedom, and transformation’ (p. xiv). She notes that the book ‘is not the linear history of the arts of an era, but rather, more of a theoretical tour of key moments that aims to map the intersection of central critical and theoretical questions with specific and prolifically generative experimental art works’ (p. xv). Consequently, she pinpoints a very limited selection of artists and works to analyse in depth, leaving aside many others that are also highly significant. In other words, she has chosen to use a method that might be called ‘case studies’ and that relies on the reader to be familiar with the overall context. Her perspective, then, is intentionally narrow in order to make broad judgements about the trajectory and genealogy of post-war Japanese culture.
Sas is especially intrigued by Terayama Shūji, and a great deal of the book references and re-references Terayama. She offers detailed, often incisive, discussions of several plays, demonstrating how he and his troupe interacted with other experimental artists of the era. Based on Terayama's creative work and his theoretical writings, Sas argues for the centrality of ‘encounter’ in his oeuvre. She is aware of the often maddening (and sometimes intentional) opaqueness (or playfulness) of his thinking, and correctly identifies chance encounters as crucial to understanding much of his work. As she cogently notes, Terayama's idea of ‘encounter’ differs from that of European existentialists, as well as from playwright Betsuyaku Minoru's position. Terayama's perspective, unlike these others, generally remains outside the political arena.
A smaller but still significant portion of the book deals with the theoretical musings of butō dancer Hijikata Tatsumi, and with Hijikata's collaboration with photographer Hosoe Eikoh. Sas draws heavily on the overlapping lives and artistic connections between artists, artistic spaces and media. She notes, ‘it is useful to consider the arts of this period in terms of “scenes” or “waves” rather than to isolate the works by medium, and it is important to consider the interlocking networks of collaborators on so many projects’ (p. 132). Among many clear-headed analyses, she contemplates various artistic responses to the legacy of the A-bomb.
This book presents intriguingly complex philosophical and aesthetic issues that are relevant to all aspects of post-war Japanese culture, focusing on (but not limited to) the performative realm.
