Reproducing the Empire
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23700142 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ayako Kano (0000-0003-3316-7424, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Pages | 85-119 |
| Publication date | 2001-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan US (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-1-349-63315-9_5 |
| OpenAlex | W2506576930 |
| ISBN | 9781349633159 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
It was in 1899 that a troupe of about 20 actors embarked on a world tour, led by Kawakami Sadayakko and her husband Otojirō. It seems that Sadayakko’s role in this troupe was an ambiguous one at the outset: She did participate in rehearsal performances in Japan, yet there were no concrete plans for her to perform abroad. Upon arriving in San Francisco in May 1899, however, she found out that the theater conventions of the United States expected her to take on a much more central role. One thing came as a surprise to me: on the way to the hotel, I could see photographs of myself blown up larger than life plastered at every street-corner! When I asked the promoter what that was supposed to mean, he told me, “in this country, performers [ haiyū ] must be female.” I argued that it was a big mistake, that I had not come as a performer, that it was Kawakami who would perform, and that the play would be Sino-Japanese War [Nisshin sensō]. But I was told, “No, that just won’t do. Americans don’t know the difference between Japan and China—they think it’s the same country. If you perform a play like that, nobody will come see it. And you’ve got to have an actress. You’ve got to have a woman.” So there was nothing I could do; I had to become a performer and act. 1 This was an early hint of the multiple roles Sadayakko would come to play in the United States and Europe, not only as a woman who by virtue of being a woman was superior to male impersonators, but also as an “oriental” woman representing her nation in relation to the West. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · China · Empire · Epistemology · Media studies · Mistake · nobody · Nothing · Performing arts · Political science · Sociology · Surprise · Visual arts · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |