羽衣、八島與月宮殿 Hagoromo, Yashima and Gekkyuden
2024，四頻道錄像、攝影，投影幕兩件：225x400cm，52吋電視機兩台。
在萬華西門町商圈的漢口街附近，有一間沿用日治時期房舍且被稱為大村武的居酒屋，店名取自這棟古宅日治時期主人的名字，是一位屬於日本喜多流派的能劇工作者，據學者王冬蘭的研究，他當初在此處建立了臺灣當時少見的能劇表演舞台，時人稱為喜多舞台。而我們該如何看待這段幾乎已塵封在臺灣歷史角落的日本傳統藝術脈絡？抑或是要如何重新探索這門古老表演藝術與臺灣過去帝國殖民史的關係？這是本計畫試著以喜多舞台為中心所開啟的提問與對話。
二戰日本戰敗後，喜多舞台也輾轉成為現今的大村武居酒屋。2020年，身為灣生後代的能劇工作者岡部千枝女士組織新的臺灣喜多會，該會成員也幾乎以女性為主，曾於2019年2月9日於大村武居酒屋舉行稽古表演會，應是此地1945年戰後睽違七十多年的能劇相關演出。綜合以上，本作將透過錄像裝置與工作坊的形式，以上述三個與台灣相關的三個劇目《羽衣》、《八島》和《月宮殿》，透過女性仕舞、講述表演（Lecture performance）以及本地參與者的能劇身段體驗，回應強調男性傳承的能樂藝術與陽性帝國敘事，這類橫跨殖民歷史、地方記憶與性別意識的嶄新想像將如何成形，是本計畫試圖梳理與思考的重點。
2024. Four-channel video installation and photography. Two projection screens: 225 × 400 cm each; two 52-inch monitors.
There’s an old building from the Japanese colonial period that remains near the edge of Taipei’s Ximending commercial district. The name of the building is the Omura Takeshi Building, and today it is an izakaya, or Japanese style restaurant. Omura Takeshi was part of Kita Noh theatrical troupe, during the Japanese colonial period and once owned the building. There, he established one of the few Noh stages and Noh schools in Taiwan. It was then known as the Kita Stage.
During the Japanese colonial period of Taiwan, although Noh has aesthetic value in its own right, its still has certain traditional connections to Japanese politics. How should we view the cultural context of these Japanese traditional arts that has almost been forgotten in the history of Taiwan? How should we evaluate these arts in connection to colonialism? This project aims to open a dialogue about this through exploring the history of the Kita Stage.
Another key point is that Taiwan was very distant from Japan and allowed different gender compositions in the Noh theater. In Japan, Noh was predominantly male, and female actors were generally only considered as amateurs. But in Taiwan, female actors had more opportunities to perform. For example, there was a female performers in the Kita theatrical troupe, a young girl named Yasuko Miyake, who acted in the Noh play, Gekyuden, at the dedication of the Kenkou Shinto Shrine in Taipei in 1929.
In this project, the artist Chen, Fei-hao and curator Kwon, Sang-hae invited the New Taiwan Kita Group’s Okabe Chie to perform Hagoromo, Yashima and Gekyuden in the form of Shimai, which were the Noh plays related to Taiwan history, and combined them with lecture performance, which would be performed by an actress, Iwasawa Yukiko who had Taiwan experience to show up the relationship between Taiwan history and Noh play. We hope to use female performers to subvert the male-dominated art of Noh and its links to masculine imperialist history. We further hope to establish a trans-colonial history and new ways of imagining local memory and sexual identity.
