Preface
11
Maja Šorli, Editor-in-Chief
This year's first issue draws on the international symposium The Art of Kamishibai: The Word of the Image and the Image of the Word, which took place in May 2018 at the Slovenian Theatre Institute in Ljubljana. The rich, three-day programme of events revealed the growing popularity, both in Slovenia and globally, of this theatrical form that unfolds between the audience and the performers in front of a butai, a miniature wooden stage with inserted images that are changed as the story is told. Attended by twenty-six international speakers, the symposium was also honoured to host an eleven-member-strong Japanese delegation of the International Kamishibai Association of Japan (IKAJA). The symposium's contributors came from twelve countries and their presentations are available in video format and/or in the online publication on the website of the Slovenian Theatre Institute. The thematic section of the issue is introduced with an essay by Igor Cvetko, who examines the wider context of kamishibai in Slovenia, followed by Tara McGowan's article positioning kamishibai into the global audio-visual history that extends from the magic lantern to the internet, thus inspiring multiple, hybrid adaptations of the form in relation to established media and formats as well as developing technologies. Julia Gerster analyses how kamishibai was used after the tsunami and nuclear accident on 11 March 2011 and argues that the form became not only a tool to convey lessons learned but also a coping mechanism for the survivors to deal with personal trauma and express their grief. She proposes a new term to highlight these features: the memorialisation kamishibai. Another practical use of kamishibai, that is, as a tool to preserve an endangered language, is described by Yosuke Miki. The thematic part devoted to kamishibai is rounded off by a review of the first Slovenian kamishibai handbook written by Jelena Sitar. In her review of Umetnost kamišibaja: Priročnik za ustvarjanje (The Art of Kamishibai: An Artist's Handbook), Sandra Jenko states that the book "comprehensively sheds light on the creative, authorial genesis of a kamishibai from the theoretical and practical points of view" and "puts art first, aiming to highlight the artistic aspects of creating kamishibai works". To polish up your knowledge of kamishibai, you are invited to read Emica Antončič's contribution in the Language Corner of the journal Dialogi (Vol. 2019; No. 5-6, pp. 36-39), which examines the spelling, word family, related words and the pronunciation of words introduced into the Slovenian space through the art of kamishibai.
Besides kamishibai-related articles, this issue also brings two articles in English and one in Slovenian. Analysing media reception and the introductory rituals of the performance Drama Observatory Kapital, performed in 1991 - the year of Slovenia's
12 independence -, Nika Leskovšek explores the public understanding of the role of art in society under the changed socio-political circumstances and the transition from socialism to democracy. Comparing two performances of Aristophanes's The Birds, Tasos Angelopoulos shows how the social and political ideology of Greekness has determined the way the Greek audiences and critics interpret Aristophanes's comedies. Miha Marek offers an original perspective on the opus of Slavko Grum to show how his playwriting fails to enact catharsis as a dramaturgical principle, which is also the reason why it is similar to the method of psychoanalytic therapy.
In addition to the review of the kamishibai handbook, the issue features three other book reviews. Lana Zdravkovic describes Tina Kolenik's Koža kot kostum: oblačenje in slačenje v vsakdanjem življenju in umetniškem ustvarjanju (Skin as Costume: Dressing and Undressing in Everday Life and Art) as "fascinating and original, as it provides a historically comprehensive and theoretically grounded (psychoanalysis, phenomenology, cultural studies) consideration of the phenomenon of human skin, but also sets out to exhaustively examine the use of human skin as material in artistic creation". Eva Pori recognises in Tomaž Toporišič's scientific monograph Medmedijsko in medkulturno nomadstvo. O vezljivosti medijev in kultur v sodobnih uprizoritvenih praksah (Intermedial and Intercultural Nomads: On the Intertwining of Media and Cultures in Contemporary Performing Arts) a "productive synthesis of in-depth theatrological-practical analyses, which are the result of the author's years of systematic and clearly focused research into the history and theory of theatre". And finally, Eva Kučera Šmon writes about Robert Phaller's Interpasivnost: radosti delegiranega uživanja (Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated Enjoyment), in which the author "by reflecting on interpassivity sheds light on the problematic of the new, modern man who fears not death, but a bad life full of pleasure".
Wishing you insightful reading!
Translated by Katja Kosi