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Title:
Performing Arts Exchange in the Absence of Sino-Japanese Diplomatic Relations: Focusing on the Reaction of The White-Haired Girl in the Japanese Workers' Journal
Abstract:
Even though Japan and China did not have formal diplomatic ties from the 1950s to 1972, there were many instances of cultural exchange. How were these exchanges conducted, and what kind of cultural production and exchange of ideas took place? With this question in mind, this study takes up the Matsuyama Ballet Company's The White-Haired Girl, an adaptation of the Chinese opera, as a case study to examine how Japanese laborers evaluated The White-Haired Girl (WHG)” at the time. We are highlighting the ballet WHG because it represents the Japanese's affinity for China and Chinese literature and art during no formal diplomatic relations. Japan's achievement in adapting the opera WHG into a ballet is noteworthy, as it later became one of the Model Operas during the Cultural Revolution.
This paper utilizes the magazines of the Laborers' Music Council as the new material. Since Ro-On had branches throughout Japan at the time, we'll concentrate on the branches in the capital, Tokyo and Nagoya, the largest city in central Japan. The Laborers' Music Council, or Ro-On for short, was an organization formed voluntarily by Japanese workers in the 1949-60s to organize stage performances and to make them available to laborers at low cost. Tokyo Ro-On was founded in 1953, one of the first Ro-Ons in Japan, and its journal was called Hibiki(which means “echo”). Founded in 1955, Nagoya Ro-On's journal was known as Harmony. According to the articles in these journals, Nagoya Ro-On organized a WHG performance in 1959, and Tokyo organized one in 1961.
In summarizing the audience response to WHG, it is evident that although there are regional differences, labor members are impressed by the story and also appreciate its value in responding to their workers' needs for expression. Tokyo Ro-On members had stronger demands for performers, which echoed Mao Zedong's Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art. It is said that Tokyo Ro-On's policy around 1960 was based on the Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art. For instance, the article about WHG in Hibiki referred to Lu Xun Institute's Academy of Arts in Yan’an, which created the opera WHG, which is not covered by Harmony. Therefore, it can be said that Hibiki was able to accurately portray the role of WHG in the ideology of the People's Republic of China more clearly than Harmony. It should be noted that not only the creators, but also many Japanese laborers at the time understood that the ballet WHG was not just expressing a simple desire for the liberation of oppressed people, but rather conveying Mao's ideology.
