Noda Manabu    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Arts and Letters    Position   Professor
Date	2010/07/29
Presentation Theme	The Ambivalent Modernity of Hijikata and Ninagawa in Japan of the 60s
Conference	IFTR 2010 World Congress: "Cultures of Modernity" (Munich, 25-31 July 2010)
Promoters	IFTR
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Individual
Details	Yukio Ninagawa, one of the most internationally known Japanese theatre directors for his productions of Western classics, was a great admirer of Tatsumi Hijikata's butoh. In a 2001 interview Ninagawa, looking back on Hijikata's 1972 butoh piece, praised it as a "groping for Japan's origin underpinned by European intellect." His comment can be interpreted as a form of self-imposed Orientalism: the mind to the West, the body to the East. This impression may be strengthened by the fact that, when butoh started, it was broadly regarded as parading unsightly and grotesque physicality. The body the dancers presented was an antithesis to the classical norm of beauty, be it ballet, noh, or kabuki. As Ninagawa saw it, "Japan's origin" was in this dark deformity. The dark origin of the indigenously Japanese was to Hijikata what the archetypal populace is to Ninagawa. "Most of the plays directed by Yukio Ninagawa," wrote theatre critic Akihiko Senda, "centre upon the idea of archetypal populace, which is visualized in the form of a stage crowd." The volatility of the crowd which Ninagawa loves to stage reflects the ambivalent modernity of the post-WWII Japan. Both Hijikata and Ninagawa looked back on some imagined past for the origin or archetype of their nationality which they hoped might serve as an alternative to the kind of modernity of their undeniably westernized country. The paper examines the ambivalent modernity of Hijikata and Ninagawa in the political milieu of Japan in the 60s.