Center for Japanese Studies Graduate Student Seminar Series

Ms. Frances Marguerite Mammana (PhD Candidate in Japanese Theatre, UHM) will give a talk titled "Amorous watermarks: Modes of enticement in both forbidden and officially endorsed kumiodori plays."

A court dance drama form created in 1719 to entertain Chinese envoys in attendance of coronation ceremonies of Ryukyuan kings, kumiodori crystallizes images of the yukatchu class as abiding closely by Confucian principles. Hence, in officially performed plays, protagonists’ selfless aims such as filial piety, loyalty, and sense of duty take priority above all other forms of emotional expressions in the plot. Yet, when self-fulfillment aspirations come into play, a tide of conflict rises. Dynamics of love, imbued with water imagery, spawn trespasses and entrapments of women, who enmeshed in ripples of merciful acquiescence towards their male counterparts needs, must in turn disregard their filial obligations. Similar patterns are observable in a contemporaneous forbidden play, whose author is thought to have held an illicit liaison with a king’s daughter. Both forbidden and endorsed plays resort to similar schemes of coercion albeit their ideologically differing ends. Treadings of legend and history, politics and theory intersect in this analysis of love depiction in kumiodori.

Ticket Information
Free and Open to the Public

Event Sponsor
Center for Japanese Studies, Manoa

More Information
Center for Japanese Studies, 956-2665, cjs@hawaii.edu, http://www.hawaii.edu/cjs/index.html

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