ATHE Corporeal States and Radical Citizenship
Katherine Mezur
Hi all, I am madly trying to finish some other dire deadlines, but here is a proposal I came up with for ATHE. Of course, I can alter it to create a space for your cool stuff, but you also can alter your line of work to consider it in light of nation, citizen, and other political arts. I thought that corporeal "states" opened it up for many of you. If you can back to me, please (neatly in an attachment, a title, an abstract of 100-200 words (shorter is better) with your name affiliation or just address contact stuff. If I get two or three responses I will make a panel and if I get more I will make it a short presentation with roundtable discussion.
love Katherine
Corporeal "States" and Radical Citizenship: How do radical performance forms de-nation and un-state the model citizen requirements and rules of behavior that gird and the modern nation state? Our panel will present case studies of radical body art, largely from Asia, (Japan?) that at different times and in different contexts, substantially revolted against the norms of nation-states. In each case, we suggest a collusion between aesthetics, politics, and pressurized conditions (war, enforced migration, illness, poverty) driven by the specific circumstances of political events. In some case the urban/city drives bodies to altered states, and in other cases the "urban" escape to country/nature/town becomes the sights of radical activity. We wish to consider these radical performance forms, such as butoh, put under the lens of how they might be read in complicity with, against, or interactive with state and/or national protocols for good citizen behavior. Given that performance of the everyday has shaped the field of cultural studies, we would like to spin this research on how the high radical performance might re-shape or cannibalize the conditions of "good" and "behavior" and shake the uprightness of the (safe) legal and "good" citizen.
Katherine Mezur
Thick rebellion: anti-modern and anti-Americanization in the performance and choreography of Hosotan's women's chorus.
Choreographed by Hijikata Tatsumi, and guided by Ashikawa Yoko, the female choruses in Hosotan (Story of Smallpox 1972) perform a tribe-like set of group dance forms that are shaped by Hijikata's kata-like (prescriptive) protocols for women's butoh performance. I suggest that these choruses go much further than that if read outside the Rebellion of the (male) Body. In the Hosotan female chorus sections, there is a cohersive strategy at work to rigorously contain and hold specific postures, gestural patternings and focus, (including costuming, makeup and wigs). Simultaneously, the women performers shift those acts to deliberately rip and tear at the post 60s and 70s protocol for good female citizen behavior and appearance and American nation-body regulations. In the rise of a turbulent girl and new woman consumer culture of the 70s, these female choruses stand out in relief as radical revolts against the Japanese clean girl cultures and the "American" feminine ideals.
Research Fellow
International Research Center
"Interweaving Performance Cultures"
Freie University Berlin
Grunewaldstr. 34
12165 Berlin(-Steglitz), Germany
Tel.: +49 30 838 50448
Fax: +49 30 838 50449
kme...@sbcglobal.net
Rosemary
Rosemary
Michael Sakamoto
Performance and media artist
Faculty, MFA-Interdisciplinary Arts, Goddard College
email: michael...@yahoo.com
site: www.michaelsakamoto.com
blog: anemptyroom1.blogspot.com
From: Rosemary <eves....@gmail.com>
To: butos-corp...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: ATHE Corporeal States and Radical Citizenship
Katherine Mezur
Subject: Re: ATHE Corporeal States and Radical Citizenship
Megan V Nicely
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