Technology and Transmedia Dramaturgy in Contemporary Japanese Performing Arts

TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSMEDIA DRAMATURGY IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE PERFORMING ARTS

This lecture focuses on the recent trends of transmedia and technology in contemporary Japanese performing arts. It begins with an overview of a wide scope of artists exploring objects, images, and new media dramaturgy. This includes a discussion of works by Dumb Type, Takayama Akira, Tanino Kuro, Hirata Oriza. Representatives of the younger generation, such as Ichihara Satoko and the theatre collective Hanchu-Yuei, are also included.* This lecture will also touch upon the various ways Japanese traditional performing arts (nō, kabuki, bunraku) have been experimenting with incorporating cutting-edge technology in their recent productions. Through the case study of teamLab, this lecture analyzes how transmedia meets popular culture to create a globally known visual brand, reflecting on how the postponed Olympic Games and the COVID-19 pandemic have been rerouting the established streams of spectatorship and cultural policy-making in Japan.

Krisztina Rosner is a Tokyo-based Hungarian researcher and practitioner of contemporary performing arts. She wrote her 2011 Ph.D. thesis on the actor’s presence and the performative aspects of silence. In her work, theory and practice are interwoven: besides teaching, she is a theatre director and actor, leads workshops in the United States, Japan, and Europe, and took part in numerous performing arts programs including Watermill Center, Viewpoints, and the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Her research focuses on the performer’s presence, and the non-human and neo-human aspects of contemporary Japanese theatre. After working as senior lecturer of Theatre Studies at the University of Pecs (HU) from 2005-2018, she is now a lecturer in comparative cultural studies and contemporary performing arts at the School of Global Japanese Studies at Meiji University, where she is also a founding member of the Contemporary Japanese Performing Arts Research Group. Grants include: UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary for Performing Artists (2006), “Eotvos” Hungarian State Research Grant (2008), Hungarian Academy of Science Book Publication Grant (2011), Japan Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (Hosei University, Tokyo, 2014), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Waseda University 2015-2017).

Website: tinarosner.com/

metaLAB is partnering with the Mahindra Humanities Center to sponsor the Transmedia Arts Seminar, chaired by Magda Romanska, and Hana Worthen.