Zero Jigen’s Pre-expressive Utopian Body: Ritual Theory and Urban Transformation

Abstract

The performance maker and counterculture activist Julian Beck’s memorable comment, ‘Why do you worry about taking your clothes off when we have to wipe out imperialism’ (Julian Beck, in Schechner, 1973: 87), is relevant to consider in light of the work of the 1960s vanguard performance group Zero Jigen (Zero Dimension). Beck, who together with Judith Malina established the Living Theatre in the United States of America in 1947, was a pioneer in the movement of countercultural anti-art performance that evolved in the 1960s. By the 1960s, the Living Theatre was a largely itinerant group, a communal band of performer-protestors exploring new ways of living and attempting to blend art and life into a single revolutionary act. The group became known for making participatory performances in the 1960s that incorporated street theatre, mass action, naked rituals, and performative anarchism. Its work influenced 1960s thinking about theatre and politics, and Beck’s question points to the central place of nudity as a point of contention and spirit of activism in the debates about politics in the era. These debates have tended to bypass Japan, where the local context of quite remarkable performance art has tended to be overlooked in the international historical accounts.