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Researcher
Kyoko Iwaki
- Research Expertise:Kyoko Iwaki is recognized as a specialist in Asian (specifically, Japanese) contemporary theatre and performance who conducts interdisciplinary research on performances in the age of durational catastrophes. The term durational catastrophe refers to those crises that goes beyond the human-scale cognition, such as nuclear fallouts, viral pandemics, and ecological crises. Due to the pseudo-invisible and more-than-human characteristic of these catastrophes, the artists included in my research – such as Ōta Shōgo, Okada Toshiki, Takayama Akira, Tanino Kurō, Ichihara Satoko, Momose Aya, Mark Teh, Sankar Venkateswaran among others – probe forms of dramaturgies that go beyond the restrictive modalities of visually-oriented and human-centric theatres. Instigated by these dramaturgies which reflect the new disposition of sensibilities that are engendered mid- and post-catastrophes, my research interests also gravitate toward those analytical scopes that destabilize the status of heteronormative canons. First, I question the human-centrality of Western theatres (both practice and venues) through the scope of theories of Buddhist-oriented Japanese philosophers (Watsuji Testurō, Izutsu Toshihiko, and Tanabe Hajime) which could be considered as more-than-human theories avant la lettre. Second, by re-assessing theatre history through the lens of Asian feminist, my research queers all binaries based on the almost-already anachronistic notion of the West and the rest. And, third, by extension of the first and second topic which, from different perspectives, inquires on the power of the Human gaze, my research puts more weight on analyzing invisible components in performances such as affect, aural, atmospheric, and the touch. Kyoko’s recent publications include: ‘The Politics of the Senses: Takayama Akira’s Atomized Theatre after Fukushima’ in Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster (Routledge, 2016); ‘Diffracting the Politicized Spectacle: Queering Censorship in the Aichi Triennale’, Performance Research (2021); ‘On (Not) Being Useful: The Art of Drifting in Asian Contemporary Theatre’, Studies in Theatre and Performance (2021); and ‘The Delegated Performance of the Dead: Performing in Post-Fukushima Phantom Reality,’ The Paper Bridge: Contemporary Intersections of Japanese-Western Theatre (Poznan University Press, 2022). She is also the Associate Editor of Performance Research journal from January 2021. Kyoko was appointed Chief Director of the Scene/Asia Pan-Asian critics and curators’ platform in 2014. The Asian performance research conducted in this platform led her to collaborate on the Spielart Festival Munich’s Asia Focus in 2017. She has also served as a jury for Theater Spektakel Festival, Zurich. Since 2017, she is the Chief Programme Advisor for Theatre Commons Festival, Tokyo. She was appointed the Chief Dramaturge for Theater der Welt 2023 festival in Frankfurt-Offenbach.
- Keywords:PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY, NONHUMAN DRAMATURGY, JAPANESE THEATRE, Language and literature (incl. information, documentation, library and archive sciences)
- Disciplines:Performance studies, Theatre science, Dramaturgy
- Research techniques:Lectures and talks; fieldwork trips and research visits; collaborative workshops and collective writings; dramaturgical practice such as festival curation; academic writing of scholarly books and articles.
- Users of research expertise:Those parties with interest in Japanese or Asian theatre; Japanese contemporary culture after the Fukushima pandemic; Those interested in contemporary theatre festivals and its dramaturgy; Parties interested in philosophy via theatre and performance; Post-colonial and decolonial perspectives from Asia; More-than-human performance and ecocritical philosophy of non-western vein.