Grajdian, Maria
(2014)
"All The World's A Stage":
Takarazuka Revue And Its Theatralisation
Of Culture(S).
International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 10 (2).
pp. 108-134.
ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243
Abstract
Founded in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizō, one of the most significant entrepreneurs
in prewar Japan, Takarazuka Revue proved itself along its centennial existence
both a faithful mirror of and an influential model for the Japanese society.
Simultaneously conservative in its gender representation and progressive in its
performance practice, a contradictory symbol of the Japanese modernity and
Japan's leading figure in entertainment industry, emerged from the syncretic,
cross-gender tradition of the centuries-old classical Japanese stage arts and
challenging that very tradition through the creative employment of Western music
and dramatic plots, Takarazuka Revue reconstructs in a specific way asymmetric
interactions between identity and alterity, model and copy, history and geography,
obtrusively displayed in sparkling tunes, fairy-tale-like sceneries and gorgeous
costumes. While taking into account the multiple layers in Takarazuka Revue's
administration and self-orchestration such as performance politics, the
economical supervision of brand-related consumption, the socio-cultural
management of actresses and fandom (fans and fan communities) as well as the
performances itself, this paper focuses on some of Takarazuka Revue's strategies
to construct cultures—indigenous as well as alien—by means of theatrical
reproduction. Especially the last 20 years—since the opening of the Grand
Theater in Takarazuka in 1993—marked an unexpected tendency in Takarazuka
Revue's public appearance, visible, on one hand, in the increasing lavishness of
its performances and the intensified commercialisation of the increasingly
androgynous otokoyaku figures, and on the other hand, in the highlighting of
individuals, societies and empires as key entities in structuring the dramaturgic
flow. This paper's aim is, thus, to analyse Takarazuka Revue's position as cultural
institution within the Japanese late modernity, possibly carrying deep-going and
wide-reaching messages of a new identity paradigm based of "love" in its body as
a local mass medium.
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