SEIJI SHIMODA
artist, poet and director of NIPAF (Nippon International Performance Art Festival)

To my Friends in Asia

My own activities
I was born in 1953 in Nagano and entered high school in 1969 when the student and antiestablishment movements were very active in Japan. I joined this movement and organized student meetings in school and local demonstrations protesting the Vietnam War and pollution.  Those days were also a time of change for Japanese youth culture.    McDonald’s hamburgers and blue jeans exploded onto the Japanese youth scene with hippies and flower children following close behind.  The keywords of our movement were synonymous with „freedom“.  For us freedom was joining demonstrations and experiencing pop culture, experimental film, music and theater.    The situation changed drastically in the early seventies.  Police brutality against students escalated wildly.  In response, we became extremely nihilistic. I stopped going to school for one year and traveled to Hokkaido Island. I had nothing to do and I started to write poems.  This was my first experience expressing myself through art.  Writing poems was wonderful because I required only a pencil and a cheap notebook to reflect the feelings inside of me.  Eventually, I discovered my limits as a poet and, with friends in Osaka, began action art in 1975.  Action art was more suited to me because I knew my body : Its strengths and its capacity to communicate emotion and sentiment. I have toured Japan as an innovative body artist since 1977.   But even as my tendency as an artist began to focus on the self and the body, the social situation in Japan and the world worsened daily. I constantly asked myself, what could I do for this society?

The Meaning of the 1990’s and the Activities of  NIPAF
Nineteen eighty-nine brought the Tienaman massacre and the revolution of  Easter European countries.  In 1990, the Gulf War raged and people witnessed the capacity of the mass media to lie.  The Cold War ended in 1991 and people realized that many problems still remained in the world. I started NIPAF (Nippon International Performance Art Festival) in February 1993. I was invited to many performance art festivals throughout the world.  At these festivals I met many innovative artists. My initial reason for staring NIPAF was a desire to hold a performance art festival in Japan.  Even In Japan, this type of festival was not very popular.  Every time I hosted the festival, I worked extremely hard to make it a success.  Art festivals, especially performance art festivals, are exciting.  Performance artists are always active and the festivals afforded artists time to communicate with one another in good spirits.  In March of this year, I finished the fifth NIPAF.  Beginning in 1996, we also started to hold NIPAF festivals during the summer. I know that the artist’s meeting at NIPAF in Japan is only a first step for us.  NIPAF’s aim is to get to know the physical strengths of each Performer and to offer support to one another.  Today,  the world faces greater challenges than ever before.  From my view, the worst Problem is not economic or environmental.  The most profound danger we face is a psychological issue. If we lose the fire in our spirits, how can the next generation see the world with such a light? I hope that NIPAF provides a shining example of the spiritual fire and energy the world’s citizens must maintain in today’s social and political climate.

Present and future in Asian Performance Art.
It is very difficult to speak about a single Asia. I know only some Asian countries.    Many Asian countries do not currently have enough freedom of expression and lack real democracy like rich western nations.  The Position of art in Asian societies is often uncertain.  Fortunately, Performance Art does not depend in rich museums, art education or westernized art history.  Even westernized art history does not yet have sulficlent knowledge about performance art.  We have a rich heritage of traditional performance art in our local societies.  This heritage provides a solid base for thinking about what kind of art we need in contemporary society.   We don’t need to follow Western art theory, though we hope to maintain contact with Western artists. If they are good artists, they have enough fire in their spirit. I know some such artists.  They always encourage me and I hope that my activities will encourage them. I think the best way to survive in the society as artists is to start organizing performance art festivals by our own hands even if we must struggle with budget concerns.   These festivals provide opportunities meet good artists who will stand with us in our struggle.  The keywords of the 1990’s are an artists’s independence and solidarity.  We should be free from today’s difficulties.