Illusions bloomed on a temporary stage (1980s)

Illusions bloomed on a temporary stage (1980s)

In 1980s Tokyo, temporary stages were set up on the streets, where young people performed impromptu plays and performances. The spirit of underground theater, as represented by Karajuro Karo and Shuji Terayama, intermingled with traditional street performance, creating a new performing arts space on the streets. The margins of the city, such as gaps between buildings, corners of parks, and under pedestrian bridges, became stages on which the freedom of improvisation and physical expression was unleashed.

The background of this period was the transformation of the city after a period of rapid economic growth and the transformation of youth culture. As a form of resistance to controlled education and standardized values, the artists who ventured out into the streets were oriented toward performing arts outside of the system. There was "freedom" and "rebellion," but at the same time, there was an ephemeral nature that disappeared on the spot. The performers on the temporary stage were like flowers that bloomed in the city, blooming and fading away, and then becoming legendary.

On the other hand, in this space where the distance between the performers and the audience was extremely close, the boundary between the performers and the audience was also blurred. The culture of the temporary stage that blossomed in the cities of the 1980s can be seen as a symbol of "freedom" that has been forgotten in today's increasingly institutionalized art world. The culture of the temporary stage, which flourished in the city in the 1980s, is a forgotten symbol of "freedom" in today's age of institutionalized art.