著者

宮川 麻理子

出版者

舞踊学会

雑誌

舞踊學 (ISSN:09114017)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2021, no.44, pp.20-31, 2021-12-25 (Released:2023-04-24)

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This paper investigates how Japanese dancers have represented ‘black’ or ‘black people’ (Kokujin) in their performances and analyzes their meanings, their ambivalent feelings towards Kokujin, and the influence of American diplomacy in the Post-War period. In Hijikata Tatsumi’s dance piece Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors) in 1959, thought as the first Butoh performance, he painted his body black to represent the black male character from Jean Genet’s novel. However, it was not only Hijikata who performed ‘black’ in this period. After WWⅡ, Japanese dancers picked up the subject that concern to black people such as the social movements of Afro-American, or used music and dance techniques related to black culture, and performed some representations of blackness by various ways especially in the period of 1950s-70s. Here, we can point out the influence of dancers who came to Japan such as Katherine Dunham or Alwin Ailey, and the jazz music that spread during this era, and the US’s policy towards Japan lay behind them. This study will show that in these representations of black people, there is a sense of solidarity of Japanese dancers with Afro-Americans, problems of discrimination that existed in different phases in Japan, and also Japanese people’s own prejudice towards black people.