It is necessary for the “tent theater (テント芝居tento shibai)”, at times, to face questions regarding its “true nature”, so it is fortunate that we can have such an opportunity at this forum, a “topos of examination”. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for this chance itself on behalf of the “tent theater”. However, it is not so easy as it seems to turn this occasion for examination into an occasion for potentialities.

The reason for this is that, as you know, “theatrical acts” are extremely fluid affairs, and their appearance is not necessarily their essence. I am not speaking of something like “modern theater (近代演劇 kindai engeki)”  that is so institutionalized to the extent that it made specimens out of “expressions”. Otherwise, it is difficult to speak of what became present in terms of its “artistic value”. The difficulty is especially pronounced in the tent theater. I have come to call such fluidity “liquefaction” in recent years. I would like to speak briefly on this “theory of expression” later.

Another thing is that, spatially speaking, the “tent theater” is a site of struggle between the individual and the collective. It is a site of struggle where the fragile murmurs of individuals contest with the “collective silence” of human history. Moreover, the struggle site itself is struggling against the external environment (natural and social). No matter from which perspective one looks at the “tent-topos (テント場tentoba)” -whether from the perspective of the individual, or from some kind of collective perspective, or from the perspective of the environment - it is impossible to fully grasp it. Compound vision is required, but humans cannot fully function with compound vision, even if it is not impossible to have it. Therefore, we have no choice but to reckon that various gazes partake of the tent-topos. The place of the audience, the place of the actors who face the audience directly, the place of the backstage staff who look at the stage from the back from the opposite site, the place of the directors, lighting and sound engineers who look at the stage from a similar place as the audience with a different gaze, the place of the passersby who look at this tent-topos from the outside, the place of the playwright who wrote the script from distance--all these gazes partake of this tent-topos. In addition, since all kinds of others (the dead) are ceaselessly being called into the tent, their “time” becomes involved into it, so it is no wonder that it gets convoluted.

However, it is dishonest to simply refer to the “true nature of the tent-topos” as chaos. It is clear that the tent-topos arose because there was a certain “will” and “desire”. Where do the “will” and “desire” reach after being shipwrecked by the stormy waves of all kinds of gazes? Where is this “topos” located? Perhaps the “island,” to which they drifted and arrived deserves to be examined.

By the way, while I have always viewed tent theater as a “form of reflection,” I do not mean personal introspection, but rather “a site of collective reflection”. Although examination and reflection are two closely related activities, they are quite different. “Examination” is concerned with the present, while “reflection反省” is concerned with some point in the past. But as long as this past is “the past as an event that has already happened”, “reflection” can only be a regret or a cultural resource. It is the “past as an event that did not happen” that the tent-topos takes as the temporal point of reflection. This kind of magical grasping of the past is something that should be eliminated in “examination”, but in the case of collective “reflection”, it seems necessary. I will touch on this matter a little later.

I would like to briefly touch on the history (or rather, the temporal shifts) of tent theater.

Tents began to be used in theater in Japan around 1967. In the late 1960s modernist art was flourishing in many ways in Tokyo. Butoh, theater, music, and visual arts all swirled with a desire to break with the old ways of expression. I believe that this was the result of the rapid development of consumer society and the rising level of vulgar intelligence of the masses at the time. It is also linked to mass political movements such as the Zenkyoto Movement, but I won't go into that here.

Although these uniquely Japanese modernist art forms, I believe, had some great artistic accomplishments, they became a resource perfectly tailored to cultural capital in less than a decade. This is yet another natural course of events, and the “demon’s children(鬼っ子) “ nurtured by consumer society have simply returned to their “parents”.

In 1972 we started a tent group called Kyokubakan (曲馬館 Acrobatic Horse House) and went on to tour the provinces with a dozen or so members.[1] The oldest member was 26 years old and the youngest was 19 years old. Kyokubakan traveled throughout Japan, aiming to become something inimical to the modernist artistic climate of the time. Thus, we became “demon’s children” to the “demon’s children”. We performed in the countryside throughout Japan, in the underclass ghettoes of the metropolis, and in universities where students were struggling with the university authorities. We met constant interventions at the hands of the police authorities and were arrested several times. The sight of riot police tightly surrounding our tent was familiar to us.

This scene was similar with activities of Kaze no Ryodan (風の旅団Brigade of the Wind) formed in 1982.[2] Particularly in Tokyo, half of the scheduled performances were wrecked by the intervention of the police authorities.

While Kyokubakan had a radical under-class orientation with links to the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front and the Japan Red Army in the Arab world at the time (I will not go into details), Kaze no Ryodan had a little more contact with so-called civil society. Kaze no Ryodan based its existence on three sources: first, the anti-emperor system movement; second, the society of the underclass (especially the day laborers’ ghetto in Sanya and other locations); and third, solidarity with the democratization movement in South Korea.

Yasen no Tsuki (野戦の月 The Moon of Field Battle) was formed in 1994.[3] Yasen did not go on extended tours. They had productions in three places--Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kitakyushu.

In 1999, the group held its first tent performance in Taiwan. This performance led to the later formation of Taiwan Haibizi (台湾海筆子 Taiwan Sea Brush).

In 2002, there was a major change in the membership composition, and the group changed its name to Yasen no Tsuki Haibizi 野戦之月海筆子.[4] From this time on, Taiwanese actors began to appear in Japanese plays on a regular basis.

Established in 2005, Taiwan Heibizi is still active today. [5]

In 2007, a tent performance of Yasen no Tsuki and Haibizi was produced by the “Beijing Tent Little Team” in Beijing. The two groups did one-day performance each at the Olympic Square in front of the Chaoyang District Cultural Center and at Picun皮村. This performance spurred the “Beijing Tent Little Team” to aim for their own tent performance.

In 2010, a tent performance was held in Picun under the name Beijing Lin Tent Theater Company（北京“临”帐篷剧社　Beijing“Liminal”Tent Theater Troupe）.

In 2013, the company changed its name to Liu Huo Tent Theatre Company ( “流火”帐篷剧社 “Plasma”Tent Theater Troupe) and performed in the 798 Art District.

I organized other tent theater productions involving Yasen members, including performances in South Korea. The production ran in Gwangju in 2005 and in Gwangju, Seoul, and Tokyo in 2012.

Thus, just jotting down the dates takes up a considerable space.

Now, I shall take up the main part of the talk. Though I am sure a considerable time has passed.

Here, I put down only the main points:

One is the issue of the individual and the collective. The following is my rough grasp of the situation. I believe that human groups have been formed by weapons throughout human history (of course, I am aware of other factors as well). Weapons (projectiles) led the weak modern humans (裸虫[6]) from hyena-like “scavenging and gathering” to “hunting”. Weak “small herds” became “human groups”. Through the exchange of weapons (warfare), “groups” gave rise to different types of “communities”. Where did the individual arise? Apparently by the invention of money (again, I will not do any detailed examination).

The reason I take this view is that I think it helps us to consider the current relationship between the individual (or the family) and the group (community, nation). People in large cities today are basically “fluid migrants” expelled from the community. This is especially true of the young people of Tokyo, who seem to have become “herds” as the nation-state is being dismantled. I see this in terms of the concept of archipelago (-nesia). In this perspective, the metropolis is an archipelago.

Is there a way for these “herds” to become “groups” without exchanging weapons? I believe that this is the most important question at the present time. Tent-topos is one way of putting this into practice.

Another is the question, what is an “expression”?

Expression is based on a certain “will” or “desire”. However, as I mentioned earlier, this “will” or “desire” cannot be shared directly with those who participate in a situation. Nor is such sharing necessary. Never in specific words nor gestures nor dances, does “something” which actors, writers, directors, or workers hope to “let out” easily come out.

In terms of language, we can only hope that a new form of speech (replay of meaning) that is neither written nor spoken will come out in the tent-topos. When it happens, it happens only once that day. We can take this experience and put it under our belt, but we cannot replay it the next day. I mentioned earlier the “collective silence” that has existed throughout human history. I believe that this silence is also related to weapons. Speech that can compete with this silence must be invented and discovered again and again.

In terms of gestures, the body must be free from bias toward either the “gestural meaning” ordered in the cerebral cortex or the “somatic response” of the medullary system. Activated by the exchange of gazes with others, such as actors playing opposite roles or the audience, gestures are invented.

Lastly, on “singing”. Singing is disarmament. Not only does it disarm ourselves, but it is also supposed to work on the hostile entities we face, for they return to their own memories. Memory, even when it is privately possessed, is fundamentally about collective topos. Memory is “memory for others”. Singing is an act of passing time, but it will illuminate some collective terrain in the past with memory as its companion.

I believe that our “reality” is composed of “actual part” and the “aspirational (magical) part”.

In particular, the “actual society” today is not only alienated from “labor”, but negatively disposed even toward the existence of humans as “labor power” value. It is the apparatus that does the work rather than humans. It seems to me that the alienation from labor, and expulsion from the status of “labor power commodity”, has left us no choice but to engage in the act of gathering leftover stuff like hyenas, namely consumption. But I believe that this fact can be changed by the “aspirational (magical) part”. I call this aspirational quality “compassion慈悲”, although it includes the magical part that, I think, would provoke ridicule.

In other words, compassion in its liquefied form is flowing right alongside the actualized reality. And this idea itself is an aspiration for “reality”. The liquid body of “compassion” liquefies the actualized facts themselves.

If tent theater bears any potentialities, it lies in its capacity to realize this “form of reflection” through repeated self-transcendence. Rather than the “topos of tent theater” as “fiction” against reality, it is the “topos of reflection” that actively transforms “reality as it is (which is, in fact, a part that is actualized)” into a “fiction”.


[1] Kyokubakan was active from 1972 to 1981, with 10 productions and a total of 100 performances in various parts of Japan.
[2] Kaze no Ryodan ran from 1982 to 1993, with 14 productions and a total of 150 performances throughout Japan.
[3] Yasen no Tsuki was active from 1994 to 2001. There were 5 productions performed at 11 locations.
[4] Yasen no Tsuki Haibizi ran from 2002   to 2012. They had 10 productions at 16 locations. Translator’s note: The members based in Japan performed simply as Yasen no Tsuki野戦之月 since 2013. They have had 17 productions as of 2024.
[5] Taiwan Haibizi has been in existence since 2005. They have had 7 productions performed at 11 locations as of 2014. Translator’s note: They had 5 productions in subsequent years as of 2024.
[6] Translator’s note: literally naked bug, humans were classified under this category in the ancient Chinese classification system that divided animals into five groups

Translated by Imamasa Hajime