Professor Peter Eckersall (Theater, City University New York, New York) will discuss the recent work of playwright and director Okada Toshiki (born 1973) and his theatre group chelfitsch. Okada is one of Japan’s most important artists working in the contemporary performance scene. His work is known for its innovative dramaturgy: for its colloquial and fragmented postdramatic texts and estranged, distended use of gesture and the body of the actor as site of exposure. He is also working with media and design elements and regularly collaborates with visual artists and musicians. Thematically his work explores the emptiness of life in Japan after the end of the bubble economic ‘boom time’ of the 1980s – and life in the hyper-capitalist world more generally. Moreover, since the Fukushima ‘triple disaster’ in March 2011, Okada’s performances have addressed existential and biopolitical questions that have great bearing on how we live today and on what terms. To this end, Professor Eckersall's paper will offer an analysis of Okada’s Eraser series (2020-21) made in collaboration with the sculptor Kaneuji Teppei – as a laboratory for an ecological theatre.

Join East Asia Center for Q&A with Professor Peter Eckersall on Wednesday, March 3rd at 5 pm on Zoom.