Asian Theatre as Method: The Toki Experimental Project and Sino-Japanese Transnationalism in Performance

Abstract

In 2012, Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong), Za-Koenji Public Theatre (Tokyo), and the Jiangsu Kun Opera Theatre (Nanjing) initiated the Toki Project, an intercultural platform devoted to the transmission of kunqu and noh through contemporary performance. Originating from a Shanghai Expo 2010 commission, Toki provides a theatrical application of Chen Kuan-hsing’s influential notion of “Asia as method.” As epitomized by the yearly One Table, Two Chairs performances at Nanjing’s Toki Arts Festival, Toki partakes in Asia as method’s effort toward “decolonization, deimperialization, and de-cold war” through aesthetic and epistemological deconstruction, endorsing a dialogic model of intercultural performance as inter-Asian relation.