This event presents two of Terayama’s live action works bridging cinema and performance with the participation of Terayama’s original collaborator Henrikku Morisaki. The surprising, plague-like visual motifs in A Tale of Smallpox re-emerge in The Trial, which begins as a man hammers nails into a city street before normal social order collapses and the ‘disturbance’ spreads to an act of violent audience participation; Terayama made this work for projection on a specially constructed screen and provides white leader at the end as an invitation for audience members to abandon their position as spectators and take possession of their own energies, hammering nails into the surface of the image. In Laura the attack against the cinematic apparatus becomes a consummation between performer and spectator, which as a mark of Terayama’s outrageous wit, was reputedly inspired by the unfulfilled affair between Laura and Alec in the 1945 British feature, Brief Encounter. The appearance onscreen of outrageous painted strippers who hurl insults at the audience is a cue for one spectator to literally enter the screen, from which he emerges clutching his torn clothes, after being stripped and assaulted on celluloid.
Please note: the performance on Sunday 18 March takes place in the Turbine Hall; the second perfromance, on Friday 23 March takes place in the East Room, Level 7
The Trial (Shinpan)
Shūji Terayama, 1975 Japan, 16mm, 34 min, includes live performance by Henriku Morisaki
Laura
Shūji Terayama, 1974 Japan, 16mm, 9 min, includes live performance by Henriku Morisaki
Curated by Thomas Dylan Eaton in association with ºÚÁÏÉç.Â
With generous support from Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Japan Foundation, Sasakawa Foundation, Toshiba Foundation, and All Nippon Airways.
Tate Film is supported by Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation.