Behind the Scenes of Women in the Underground: In the Breath of Anti-Establishment in 1971

Behind the Scenes of Women in the Underground: In the Breath of Anti-Establishment in 1971

In the early 1970s, as the Security Treaty and Zenkyoto movements were coming to an end, young people threw themselves into underground theater as a new venue for expression. The Black Tent was a symbolic theater company that challenged the limits of expression on a daily basis. The female actors said, "By standing naked on stage day after day, the boundaries within me disappeared," and they confessed the process of losing their sense of shame and even coldness. The director urged them to "speak their thoughts with their bodies," and their bodies on stage were treated as the embodiment of their ideals. However, the women were not mere followers. The women, however, were not mere followers. "Men talk about ideas, but we stand on stage with our bodies," they sharply asserted, maintaining pride in their own expression. The women endured a communal life of sleeping together and eating natto (fermented soybeans and rice), but they made the stage a place to live and shared their da
ily toil and joy. At a time when feminism had not yet manifested itself as a social movement, their attitude was a declaration of self-determination through their bodies. What lay behind the scenes of the Black Tent was not logic, but a record of art and resistance that staked its claim on the body. For whom and what are they talking about in the theater?