2014東アジア環境文学国際学会＜2014.1122－23、名桜大学＞で、台湾で教壇に立つアジア演劇研究者でご自身が演出、表現活動もしているキャサリン教授が研究発表することになっています。彼女は
Diamond, C., Communities of Imagination: Southeast Asian Contemporary Theatres, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.
の著書があります。(さっそく、琉球大図書館に注文しました。）
彼女からメールがあり、にわかにＥｃｏｌｏｇｙ(生態学）と演劇（Ｐｅｒｆｏｒｍｉｎｇ Ａｒｔｓ）の事に関心が向いています。私も環境文学・学会の会員になって沖縄の芸能や演劇の中の自然や環境、人間と生態系の関係性のありようについて論稿を書きたくなりました。沖縄の自然との関係は組踊や沖縄芝居、琉球舞踊、古典、民謡、新作組踊と多いことに気が付きました。
大城立裕先生の作品（新作組踊）にも自然と一体となった沖縄的世界観がすでに表示されていますね。嘉数道彦さんの新作組踊作品も自然界の生き物たちと人間が一体となった世界観です。
20日から5日間沖縄をはじめて訪問するキャサリンさんを大城先生や嘉数さん、沖縄の芸能家の皆さんに御紹介できたらと考えています。沖縄芸能は、民俗芸能も含め、自然（生態系）は大きな位置を占めていますね。ニライカナイの神様からしてそうですね。キャサリンさんからのメールを切っ掛けにして、世界がまたこのように深められたことは、とても良かったと思います。以下はベルリン自由大学の世界への広報です。キャサリンさんはこのような方です！
International Research Center »Interweaving Performance Cultures«
(著名なエリカ・フィッシャー＝リヒテさんがいますね。Ｉｎｔｅｒｗｅａｖｉｎｇです！）
Catherine Diamond
Catherine Diamond
Catherine Diamond is a professor and theatre director at Soochow University. Her current focus lies on environmental themes in Southeast Asian theatre. Previously researching Chinese theatre, she received a Fulbright fellowship to write about textual adaptation in the post-martial law theatre in Taiwan. Her research was published in Chinese as Actors are Madmen; Spectators are Fools: Taiwan Theatre 1988-98. She was the director of Phoenix Theatre, an English-language theatre in Taipei, and is currently the director/playwright of the Kinnari Ecological Theatre Project (KETEP) that produces new plays by combining Southeast Asian folk narratives with local environmental problems. She has written several works of fiction and poetry set in Taiwan, as well as short stories about dancers in Asia and the Middle East. She has just finished a novel set in the world of Spanish flamenco. As a flamenco dancer, she performs in Taipei, and she recently directed a dance-drama based on Lorca’s La Casa de Bernarda Alba performed by Taiwanese flamenco dancers.
Research Project
Formulating A Biocentric Theatre Aesthetic
I am investigating the possibility of a biocentric theatre aesthetic that would incorporate the evolving relationships between human and nonhuman life from the perspectives of different Asian and Western cultures. Theatre is an artificial cultural construct that often stands opposed to nature, and the representation of nature in a theatrical context has always been problematic. Traditional preindustrial theatres dealt with the problem through stylization and symbolism. Realistic theatre was more awkward in presentation but did include the destruction of nature in its social critique, such as in Ibsen’s Enemy of the People. Contemporary realistic dramas treat nature as a source for intellectual debate but without much insight into nature itself.
Contemporary work that more deeply explores nature-humanity relationships is often nonverbal performance, incorporating visual and choreographic arts. It performs with more immediacy than text-based plotted drama. Film also more easily accommodates ecological realism and is better able to represent the vast reach of nature.
However, textual drama can plumb cultural narratives and derive new perspectives from traditional knowledge. Scientific discoveries, providing new insights into the interconnectedness between human and nonhuman life, can inspire new forms of theatrical narrative. I wish to look into biomimetics as a source for new drama structures. A biocentric theatre would recalibrate religious hierarchies that ethically and spiritually separate the human and nonhuman. It would search for a new aesthetic that brings nature into the theatre and expands the nature of theatre.
Recommended Publications
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Arons, W./May, T. (eds.) Readings in Performance and Ecology, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
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Thornber, K. L., Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crisis and East Asian Literature, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2012.
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Diamond, C., Communities of Imagination: Southeast Asian Contemporary Theatres, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.
