Time Schedule:
Katherine Mezur
DRAMA 583
Seattle Campus
Analytic approaches to dramatic materials, concentrating on semiotics, Marxism, feminism, or a related critical theory.
Class description
Japanese Corporeal Cultures in Performance: Noh, Kabuki, Takarazuka, and Butoh
What is Felt in the Heart is Ten; What Appears in Movement is Seven Zeami (Kakyô, trans. Rimer, Yamazaki)
Kinaesthesia is like the missing acknowledgment of the emperor's body without his clothes. Deidre Sklar
Historicizing empathy constructs, not a vantage point, but a trajectory from which to interrogate this how and what of corporeality. Susan Foster
In this seminar we will examine the Japanese performance forms, Noh, Kabuki, Takarazuka, and Butoh, through their embodied histories, performance texts, and theatrical practices. Drawing on Western and Japanese theories of aesthetic embodiment, sensuous knowledges, genders, queer cultures, kinaesthetic and haptic perception, habitus, architecture, disability, race and ethnicity, and performance studies, we will explore questions concerning the articulation of nation, culture, and identity in these radically different performance forms. We will also consider the special stylization practices of each performance type and how these inform, translate, and transform the bodies of the performers and spectators. Because the "way," the "teacher," and the "forms" are central to all Japanese performance forms, we will also look at how and which new works and creative styles are allowed to break and tear even the most rigid traditions. Other areas of investigation will include how someone outside the culture perceives how these performances communicate: How do we deal with "different" and "strange" corporeality? In some cases, we will explore these singular performance practices within their Japanese habitat and in the cultures of their diasporas.
Other possible areas of inquiry may include the following questions: What has been left out of traditional histories of body-based performance? How does corporeal knowledge shape our perception of another culture's performance? How does gender and sexuality figure in embodied analysis of text and performance? How do we conduct embodied research? Why do some performance forms travel and transfer to many different bodies, while others, remain within the confines of their home-body culture? Which forms become "national theatres" and why? Do we assume "bodies are bodies" when feminist, queer, and postcolonial studies emphasize that we "sense" differently according to our cultural milieu and its accompanying laws, restrictions, and obligations? How do "past" bodies function? Do they maintain the material culture theories that still operate in the present?
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
All readings are in translation in English. Those who can read Japanese may read plays and theory in Japanese and present bi-lingual research. Please note that this course encourages interdisciplinary approaches to performance research and performance/practice as research. Outside of class time video viewing is required.
REQUIRED TEXTS: Course Reader; Benito Ortolani, The Japanese Theatre; Susan Klein, Ankoku Butô; Jennifer Robertson, Takarazuka; Zeami On the Art of Noh Drama (trans. Rimer and Yamazaki);
Recommended and on reserve: Studies in Kabuki, Its Acting, Music and Historical Context, Brandon, Malm and Shively. Earle Earnst The Kabuki Theater; Katherine Mezur, Beautiful Boys/Outlaw Bodies; Samuel Leiter, ed. A Kabuki Reader.
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
