Installation & Performance Art
FAAM, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum
Japan
2008
Meera George
The installation is set to the mood of a kabuki stage, with a Hanamichi (path) leading to it. Through the installation the viewer is invited to step on to the stage and in turn become the performer. Before him/her are multiple screens of projected audience watching in anticipation. The stage appears like a scene from a home- complete with utensils, furniture, books and appliances. Each object on the stage, each piece of furniture is carefully wrapped with sari fabric, eluding to the never ending sari that Krishna blessed Draupadi to protect her, as portrayed through the video performance on the far side of the installation.
Onnagata is the term given to a female role played by a male actor in Kabuki theatre. The work comments on the woman’s role in Japanese society. The central character portrayed through this video performance art is Draupadi (from Indian mythology) at the time of her vastraharan (disrobing). The performance enacts the entire sequence of events that conspires in publicly shaming a woman. The film is shot at various locations across Fukuoka including an actual Kabuki theatre. Kabuki an entirely male dominated theatre artform lent inspiration for my performance art work. Part of the research went in spending time with a kabuki actor who plays the role of Onnagata on stage and learning how he transforms and crosses gender through appearance and role play momentarily. In kabuki theatre the female character is disallowed from expressing anger or rage. Through this performance an androgynous character is created, to portray emotions through facial make up that is usually adorned on male actors as means to express.
Recipient of FAAM grant and art residency in 2008, the work was created during fellowship at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan.
