Theatres towards the Body: Avant-garde Practice and Corporeality

Cross-pollination, transhistoricity, contamination, hybridisation of artistic disciplines and cultural exchange are core aspects of both historical and postwar avant-garde phenomena; yet, the increasing of the transnational flux of practices and direct experiences of avant-garde forms became a distinctive feature of the postwar era. Indeed, as A. J. Gunawardana evidenced in his contribution to the 1971 The Drama Review issue “Theatre in Asia”, it is only since the Second World War that there has occurred an intensification of first-hand experience of Asian techniques among European and American theatre and dance practitioners in order to rejuvenate existing art systems. It is in such a context, that body-based theatre and performance became emerging issues that transverse national and cultural borders, and unique experimentations in connection to the performer’s body flourished throughout the world. According to this tendency important transdisciplinary events that bring together scholars and theatre practitioner took place, such as the International Symposium on the Theatre in the East and the West organised by UNESCO in 1963, the year before the Tokyo 1964 Olympics. This paper focuses on questions concerning corporeality in avant-garde performance taking Hijikata Tatsumi’s butō as a vivid example of reassessing performance itself.