Hagoromo, Yashima and Gekkyuden: Formosan Noh, her Shimai｜Fei-Hao Chen

Hagoromo, Yashima and Gekkyuden: Formosan Noh, her Shimai

Artist: Fei-Hao Chen
Cast: Chie Okabe, Yukiko Iwasawa
Curation: Sanghae Kwon

Date：November 20th and 26th, 2022
Time：17:30 – 18:30
Venue：Kuraki Noh Stage　MAP
Detailed Info：Official Facebook Page

Tickets：
Advance ticket ￥2000
11/20：https://taiwannogaku.peatix.com/
11/26：https://taiwannogaku2.peatix.com/

Organized by Fei-Hao Chen, Sanghae Kwon
Supported by The National Culture and Arts Foundation
Cooperated by 435 Art Zone、PARADISE AIR

There’s an old building from the Japanese colonial period that remains near the edge of Taipei’s Ximending commercial district. The name of the building is the Omura Takeshi Building, and today it is an izakaya, or Japanese style restaurant. Omura Takeshi was part of Kita Noh theatrical troupe, during the Japanese colonial period and once owned the building. There, he established one of the few Noh stages and Noh schools in Taiwan. It was then known as the Kita Stage.
During the Japanese colonial period of Taiwan, although Noh has aesthetic value in its own right, its still has certain traditional connections to Japanese politics. How should we view the cultural context of these Japanese traditional arts that has almost been forgotten in the history of Taiwan? How should we evaluate these arts in connection to colonialism? This project aims to open a dialogue about this through exploring the history of the Kita Stage.
Another key point is that Taiwan was very distant from Japan and allowed different gender compositions in the Noh theater. In Japan, Noh was predominantly male, and female actors were generally only considered as amateurs. But in Taiwan, female actors had more opportunities to perform. For example, there was a female performers in the Kita theatrical troupe, a young girl named Yasuko Miyake, who acted in the Noh play, Gekyuden, at the dedication of the Kenkou Shinto Shrine in Taipei in 1929.
In this project, the artist Chen, Fei-hao and curator Kwon, Sang-hae invited the New Taiwan Kita Group’s Okabe Chie to perform Hagoromo, Yashima and Gekyuden in the form of Shimai, which were the Noh plays related to Taiwan history, and combined them with lecture performance, which would be performed by an actress, Iwasawa Yukiko who had Taiwan experience to show up the relationship between Taiwan history and Noh play. We hope to use female performers to subvert the male-dominated art of Noh and its links to masculine imperialist history. We further hope to establish a trans-colonial history and new ways of imagining local memory and sexual identity.