Terayama shuji biography definition
•
Shuji Terayama, Emperor of the Underground
Poet, playwright, novelist, photographer, sports critic, filmmaker and cultural agent provocateur Shuji Terayama (1935-1983) was among the most broadly influential and innovative figures active in the post-WWII Japanese avant-garde. Throughout his all-too-brief but astonishingly prolific and multifaceted career, Terayama deliberately confused boundaries between high and low, between history and myth, while working inventively across different media. Terayama’s intermingling of theater, film and photography was an especially important inspiration for his visionary art practice. Beginning with his precocious and often controversial engagement with traditional tanka poetry as a mere teen, Terayama held tight to his belief that genuine artistic creativity was rooted in the act of shattering molds in order to cast them anew. Cinema was a source of fascination for Terayama ever since the childhood days and nights spent in his u
•
Terayama, Shuji 1935-1983
PERSONAL:
Born December 10, 1935, in Aomori, Japan; died of a kidney ailment, May 4, 1983. Education:Attended Waseda University.
CAREER:
Founder of Tenjo Sajiki theater company, 1967. Director of films, including Pastoral Hide and Seek, c. 1975; Collections Privées, 1979; Fruits of Passion, 1981; and Saraba Hakobune, c. 1982.
AWARDS, HONORS:
Grand prize, San Remo Festival, 1968.
WRITINGS:
SCREENPLAYS
Youth in Fury, 1960.
Epitaph to My Love, 1961.
My Face Red in the Sunset, 1961.
Namida o Shishi no Tategami,1962.
Nanami: Inferno of First Love, c. 1969.
(And director) Emperor Tomato Ketchup, c. 1970.
Buraikan, 1970.
(And producer and director) Sho O Sutevo, Machi E Devo, 1971.
(And director) Pastoral Hide and Seek, c. 1975.
(And director) The Boxer, 1977.
Sado, 1978.
(And director) Kusa-meikyu, 1983.
STAGE PLAYS
Chi wa tatta mama nemutte iru, 1960.
Aomori no semushi otoko, 1967.
Kegawa no Mari
•
Where the mountain meets the street: Terayama Shuji
Web exclusive
Terayama Shuji died of liver failure almost 30 years ago, but it feels odd to need to reintroduce him to a new generation in the West. His reputation is secure in Japan: books bygd and about him are in every decent bookstore, his movies are readily available on DVD and his theatre productions are still revived. His name is still current. But he’s largely forgotten in Europe and America. His theatre company Tenjo-sajiki gods performed in London in 1978 (it was a play inspired by Jonathan Swift’s satire Directions to Servants and – full disclosure – I was a guest member of the troupe), and his films haven’t been much seen since the gods retrospective at the National Film Theatre in 1987. And now he’s a museum del av helhet at the Tate. The tribute fryst vatten welcome, of course, but you can’t escape the feeling that a grundläggande and subversive artist fryst vatten being pinned down and classified.
Two experiences in Terayama’s childhood and ado