4th Kyoto Prize Symposium [Theater, Cinema] Oriza Hirata, July 1, 2017

J4th Kyoto University-Inamori Foundation Joint Kyoto Prize Symposium
http://kuip.hq.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
https://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/opencourse-en/181
uly 1, 2017

[Theater, Cinema]
Oriza Hirata
Playwright, Director
Specially Appointed Professor, Center for the Study of CO Design, Osaka University

Title of Presentation
“Theater as a Communication Device”

The performing arts—theater and dance—probably have about as long a history as primeval humans, and in addition to the enjoyment it provides in and of itself, it also offers a variety of incidental social functions.

I would like to offer some thoughts here about one aspect of those functions in particular, the role of the performing arts in building, maintaining, and reviving communities, looking at the issue from two main perspectives.

The first is the issue of communication. Among all living creatures, humans are the only ones who belong to two kinds of groups: a “family” and a “community.” Gorillas stay in family units while chimpanzees stay in community units, but humans go back and forth between the two. To do so, we are compelled by the need to convey something to others.

If the members of a community always had the same type of experiences, then there would be no such need, but we humans alone must convey to others such ideas as “Who was successful in hunting today?” or “What issues are occurring within the household at the moment?” Naturally, there are better or worse ways that emerge when conveying such information. It begins with conveying what sort of prey was caught, giving sound to the color and shape, and eventually that becomes abstract and is sublimated as art.

The second point is the question of consensus building. When people with different values form a community, or when multiple families form a collective group, we must always carry out some form of consensus building. In many cases, public entertainment such as the village festival was probably a rite of passage for that purpose. Once you become a certain age, you are involved in festival preparations, which take one or two months, letting you experience collaborative work with adults outside your family. In the days when there was no school education, these festivals were also an important educational institution for maintaining the collective.

In this lecture, after offering my reflections on this type of social role of the performing arts, I will also report on the current status of cutting-edge communications education in Japan.