Layers of the Traditional in Popular Performing Arts: Object and Voice as Character: Vocaloid Opera AOI

Krisztina Rosner

doi:10.32926/2018.6.ros.layer

Abstract

The paper analyzes how the concept of presence is put into play in connection to disappearance, contemporary popular media technology and objects in the 2014 production of Vocaloid Opera Aoi, composed by Hiroshi Tamawari. In the traditional noh theatre version of the famous story, the character Aoi does not appear “in person,” she is represented by a kimono. In the 2014 production the modified story is performed with bunraku puppets and sung by a Vocaloid singer, a software. By analyzing this, I elaborate on the connection between the recent studies on object dramaturgy and the questions of nonhuman (Bennett, Eckersall), and the nonreflective position rooted in animism from the fan base of pop culture that attributes personality and emotions to their respective robot/android/software idol. I examine the latest performative events in contemporary Japanese theatre that involve both human and non-human actors/agents (animals, objects, androids, vocaloids): the corporeality of the organic and inorganic Other, focusing on how the presence of the organic and non-organic nonhuman appears within the interplays of representation, how it relates to the layers of empathy, responsibility and consent, in the frame of contemporary Japanese popular culture.

Highlights

I suggest that it is a bigger change than just replacing an object with a performer: this shift represents an important difference between noh and the theatre of the modernity, namely staging the female body
The voice, the question of who “owns”, who “possesses” the voice seems to be a central conflict in the opera, for example in the duel between the human and Vocaloid singer, and in the case when the possessing spirit sings through Aoi
While the composers of the Miku shows bring her own persona into play, Tamawari multiplies these layers of identification in his Vocaloid Opera Aoi

Summary

Introduction

I suggest that it is a bigger change than just replacing an object with a performer: this shift represents an important difference between noh and the theatre of the modernity, namely staging the female body.

Results

Conclusion