Nobuko Anan - Contemporary Japanese Women’s Theatre and Visual Arts

Contemporary Japanese Womens Theatre and Visual Arts

Contemporary Performance InterActions

Series Editors: Elaine Aston, Lancaster University Brian Singleton, Trinity College Dublin

Editorial Advisory Board: Khalid Amine, Bishnupria Dutt, Mark Fleishman, Janelle Reinelt, Freddie Rokem, Joanne Tompkins, Harvey Young

Theatres performative InterActions with the politics of sex, race and class, with questions of social and political justice, form the focus of the Contemporary Performance InterActions series. Performative InterActions are those that aspire to affect, contest or transform. International in scope, Contemporary Performance Interactions publishes monographs and edited collections dedicated to the InterActions of contemporary practitioners, performances and theatres located in any world context.

Joanne Tompkins

THEATRES HETEROTOPIAS

Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space

Forthcoming titles include:

Stephen Farrier & Alyson Campbell (editors)

QUEER INSTRUMENTS

Local Performance Practices and Global Queernesses

Des ORawe & Mark Phelan (editors)

POST-CONFLICT PERFORMANCE, FILM AND VISUAL ARTS

Cities of Memory

Sarah French

PERFORMING POSTFEMINISMS

Sexuality and Gender Politics in Contemporary Australian Theatre and Performance

Charlotte McIvor

MIGRATION AND PERFORMANCE IN CONTEMPORARY IRELAND

Towards a New Interculturalism

Contemporary Performance InterActions

Series Standing Order ISBN 9781137359872 Hardback
9781137455932 Paperback

(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above.

Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Performing Girls Aesthetics

Nobuko Anan

Lecturer in Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College,
University of London, UK

Nobuko Anan 2016

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martins Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 9781137372970

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anan, Nobuko, 1973
Contemporary Japanese womens theatre and visual arts : performing girls aesthetics / Nobuko Anan.
pages cm
Summary: This book explores the concept of girls aesthetics, where adult Japanese women create art works about girls that resist motherhood. It traces their beginnings in homoerotic novels about schoolgirls around the 1910s and their later expression in early Boys Love (BL) manga in the 1970s. The aesthetics are also manifested in contemporary theater and dance performances both in avant-garde and popular theater groups (e.g., Takarazuka) as well as in cult films. Girls aesthetics are distinct from the well-known kawaii (cute) culture and contemporary art theories that emphasize the child-like nature of Japanese arts. The book situates these aesthetics within a history of Japanese performance and visual arts during the modern and contemporary period and links them to historical events such as the violent 1960s leftist movements, the 1970s womens liberation movements, and the post-war Japan-US relationship. The aesthetics provide an alternative to Western approaches for theorizing women within feminist theory. This is an important book for scholars and upper-level students of international performance and Japanese studies Provided by publisher.

ISBN 9781137372970 (hardback)

1. TheaterJapanHistory. 2. Women in the theaterJapanHistory.
3. Aesthetics, Japanese. 4. Performing artsJapanPhilosophy. 5. Women in the theaterJapanHistory19th century. I. Title.
PN2921.A515 2015
792.0952dc23

2015026705

Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

To Franklin Chang

I would like to thank many people who supported me during the writing of this book. It was Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, my mentor at UCLA, who first opened a door to the world of performance studies for me. Under her guidance, I developed a greater understanding of the body in performance and visual arts, and I am very grateful for her continuing encouragement. Janelle Reinelt, my mentor at the University of Warwick, where I was a Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow, saw the development of this book from the beginning. I am deeply indebted to her for her enthusiasm as well as for her acute comments on multiple drafts. She told me about the Newton program at a conference in LA and this fellowship brought many valuable experiences and encounters. My life would have been very different if we had not met there.

I would also like to thank Elaine Aston, who, with Janelle, read the manuscript and gave me detailed suggestions and comments. I feel privileged that they shared their thoughts with me. My sincere thanks also go to my teachers, colleagues, and friends, who read parts of the text at various stages and whose work and personal charms have been a source of inspiration for me: Michael Bourdaghs, Sue-Ellen Case, Elin Diamond, Susan Leigh Foster, Milija Gluhovic, Yasuko Ikeuchi, and Jiayun Zhuang. I am also grateful to Tadashi Uchino, Naomi Tonooka, and Azuma Sonoko for providing helpful information. I would like to extend my thanks to the Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College for providing me with a good research environment, and to the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick for providing abundant scholarly opportunities through which I was able to develop my perspectives. I also thank my colleagues Jane Arnfield, Laura Cull, Elizabeth Kramer, and Jenny Lawson at the School of Arts at Northumbria University. Many thanks go to Elaine Aston and Brian Singleton for including this book in their series, and to Jenny McCall, Peter Cary, and Paula Kennedy at Palgrave Macmillan for their editorial assistance. I would also like to thank Nishihara Momi, my dearest girl friend, who helped me locate materials in Japan. I am very grateful for our more than twenty years of friendship.