Memory of Nanjing : Kamome Machine’s Experiments in Sharing Thoughts Through Body

Juraic, Beri and Hagiwara, Yuta and Shimizu, Honami and Ito, Shin (2023) Memory of Nanjing : Kamome Machine’s Experiments in Sharing Thoughts Through Body. In: 15th Colloquium of the Asian Theatre Working Group, International Federation for Theatre Research, 2023-02-18 - 2023-02-19, National Chung Cheng University. (Unpublished)

Abstract

The controversial topic of Nanjing Incident and its memorialization is very rarely depicted in theatre. David Askew (2004) observes the difficulty of overcoming semantics, consensus about the number of killed in Nanjing and the very essence of what constitutes a massacre among Chinese, Japanese and English historians and activists. This partially explains why it is then difficult to deal with this topic within Asian theatre and beyond. Equally important, the memory of the war has been heavily politicized on both sides. How can theatre go beyond politicization and liberate itself from these political myths as Eiji Oguma (1995) calls for? How can we live together as Roland Barthes (1977) discussed in his lectures? In summer 2022, Japanese performance company Kamome Machine embarked on a research for their new project re-addressing the Nanjing. In general, Kamome Machine’s works explore public and private space that centre on the human body. They are known for their site-specific performances such as Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, performed just outside Fukushima's exclusion zone or more recently telephone theatre series Moshi Moshi. The company is also known for not shying away from difficult topics, for example performing and facing the Constitution of Japan in Oregayo. In short, their aesthetics involve navigating the history, memory through text written onto the performers’ body both physically and aurally. For the initial research phase on the Nanjing project, Kamome Machine has interviewed Chinese students, invited a historian and a Chinese dancer/choreographer in a process they termed ‘experiments in sharing thoughts through body’. This hybrid presentation will involve a short academic paper on their work which will be followed by Kamome Machine’s members interactively demonstrating the outcomes of their initial research process on the Nanjing Incident and methods on how they are hoping to deal with it through performance. The main question that arises here is how performer’s bodies can not only overcome the internal struggles with the problem, but also reposition the memorialisation away from political controversy.