Inaugural Online Meeting of the Special Research Project, Performing Arts and Conviviality

Objectives:

With the world-wide resurgence of racism, sexism and xenophobia, harmonious coexistence is one of the most urgent and challenging issues we need to address today. How can people of diverse social and cultural backgrounds, political ideologies and religious faiths live together in mutual respect and empathy? The Special Research Project, Performing Arts and Conviviality , aims to address this question by focusing on the potential of the performing arts. It seeks to explore and identify the frameworks and conditions under which performing arts can be effective in creating a convivial relationship, by examining case studies relating to diverse situations.

For this research project, we have assembled a group of thirteen researchers and social activists from six different countries, all deeply engaged in local community-based projects, with a passion for human rights and conviviality. To provide a venue for cross-cultural examination and for collective reflection on the topic, an international symposium was originally scheduled for March 19–22, 2020. It was postponed due to the pandemic, and the continuing instability of the international situation does not allow us to conduct an in-person symposium within the 2020 academic year.

Instead, to push the project forward, we have decided to hold a series of online meetings to partially or totally substitute for the in-person symposium. This inaugural meeting will feature the keynote speech by Samuel Araujo, which will follow the opening speeches and the explanation of the project’s objectives and scope. A series of three other online meetings will be planned, with two presentations each, throughout the rest of 2021, roughly one every three months. We will spread out the meetings to allow the participants to have a deeper engagement with each other’s research. An on-site symposium in Osaka is also planned tentatively for February or March, 2022. If the health situation continues to be unfavorable, then a few more Zoom meetings will be organized for the remaining presentations.

Time/Date:

9am-11am (Japan time), March 6, 2021

Program:

1. Welcome Speech 1 (Yoshida Kenji, the Director-General of the National Museum of Ethnology)
2. Welcome Speech 2 (Fukuoka Shota, Head of the Special Research Project, Performing Arts and Conviviality )
3. Explanation of the Objectives and Outline of the Symposium (Deborah Wong and Terada Yoshitaka)
4. Keynote Speech: “Ethnomusicology in a world without seasons: Reflections on music, the arts and conviviality” (Samuel Araujo)

Scheduled Participants:

Samuel Araujo (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Fukuoka Shota (National Museum of Ethnology)
Iwasawa Takako (Hokkaido University of Education)
Mashino Ako (Tokyo University of the Arts)
Nagata Atsumasa (Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University)
Nakamura Mia (Kyushu University)
Rossella Ragazzi (University of Tromsø, Norway)
Gopalan Ravindran (Central University of Tamil Nadu, India)
Toni Shapiro-Phim (Brandeis University, USA)
Takemura Yoshiaki (National Museum of Ethnology)
Tan Sooi Beng (Universiti Sains. Malaysia)
Terada Yoshitaka (National Museum of Ethnology)
Olivier Urbain (Min-on Research Center)
Waseda Minako (Tokyo University of the Arts)
Deborah Wong (University of California, Riverside, USA）
Yanohara Yushi (Kyoto University)
Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes (Tokyo University)

Executive Committee:
Fukuoka Shota (Head)
Kamino Chie
Kawase Itsushi
Nobuta Toshihiro
Okada Emi
Saito Reiko