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Human No-Go Zones: Theatricalizing Unintentional and Intentional Wildlife Sanctuaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2020

CATHERINE DIAMOND
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Abstract

Some recent performances have addressed events that created ‘human no-go zones’ such as Chernobyl (CEZ), Fukushima (FEZ) and the Korean DMZ. In the wake of the destruction that results in the absence of humans, non-human residents begin the process of recuperation, and the ‘no-go zones’ become inadvertent sanctuaries for wild and abandoned domestic animals. Each of the following productions takes a different view of what occurs when both the norms of nature and the practices of human societies and economies are profoundly disrupted. In addition, one play has depicted a community exercising a new restraint to establish an intentional ‘no-go zone’ to ensure its own survival. When confronted with catastrophes that threaten the existence of all life, as well as the surprising possibilities of renewal, dramatists employ heightened poetic diction and resort to mythical precedents in the attempt to capture the immensity of both the event and its aftermath.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 160 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2020

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References

NOTES

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2 Haraway, Donna, ‘Symbiogenesis, Sympoiesis, and Art Science Activisms’, in Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, Swanson, Heather Anne, Gan, Elaine and Bubandt, Nils, eds., Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017), pp. M24–M50Google Scholar, here p. M30.

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5 Ibid., p. 301.

6 Alexievich, Svetlana, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, trans. Gessen, Keith (New York: Picador, 2005), p. 174Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., pp. 113–14.

8 Germán D'Jesús, Voices from Chernobyl, unpublished play script, p. 18.

9 Ibid., pp. 21–2.

10 Ibid., p. 17.

11 John Wendle, ‘Animals Rule Chernobyl Three Decades after Nuclear Disaster’, National Geographic, 18 April 2016, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/, accessed 4 April 2018.

12 Timothy A. Mousseau, ‘At Chernobyl and Fukushima, Radioactivity Has Seriously Harmed Wildlife’, The Conversation, 25 April 2016, https://theconversation.com/at-chernobyl-and-fukushima-radioactivity-has-seriously-harmed-wildlife-57030, accessed 28 April 2018.

13 Ibid.

14 Alex Benjamin, ‘Staging Chernobyl: The Regeneration of a Wasteland (proposal)’, 2014, https://isen.northwestern.edu/sites/default/files/Student_ABenjamin.Jun14_ProjectSummary.pdf, accessed 15 May 2018.

15 Alex Benjamin, ‘Staging Chernobyl: The Regeneration of a Wasteland’, Northwestern Undergraduate Research Journal (NURJ Online), May 2014, http://www.thenurj.com/theses/staging-chernobyl, accessed 15 May 2018.

16 Amelia Curran, ‘Review: Voices from Chernobyl’, A Younger Theatre, 12 May 2017, https://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-voices-from-chernobyl-jack-studio-theatre/, accessed 19 August 2018.

17 M. Cody Poulton, ‘Antigone in Japan’, in Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, eds., Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), pp. 127–43, here p. 141.

18 In September 2018, both North and South Korea began removing landmines from an area in the DMZ thus making the question of what will happen to the land (and its animals) more urgent.

19 Lisa Brady, ‘How Wildlife Is Thriving in the Korean Peninsula's Demilitarised Zone’, The Guardian, 13 April 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/13/wildlife-thriving-korean-demilitarised-zone, accessed 17 June 2018.

20 Alan Weisman, ‘Turn the Korean DMZ into a Bridge of Peace? Why Major Artists Say the Idea Isn't Crazy’, Los Angeles Times, 27 December 2017, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-dmz-art-20171231-htmlstory.html, accessed 11 September 2018.

21 Ibid.

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23 Ah-jeong Kim and R. B. Graves, trans., The Metacultural Theater of Oh Tae-Sok: Five Plays from the Avant-Garde (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), p. 19.

24 Jeremy Neideck, ‘My Love DMZ’, https://jeremah.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/my-love-dmz/, accessed 30 October 2014.

25 Ibid.

26 Poulton, ‘Antigone in Japan’, p. 132.

27 Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, ‘Introduction’, in Geilhorn and Iwata-Weickgenannt, Fukushima and the Arts, pp. 1–20, here p. 7

28 Kein Licht was directed concurrently by Motoi Miura in 2012.

29 Jelinek quoted in Poulton, ‘Antigone in Japan’, p. 139.

30 William Andrews, ‘“Demarcation: Akira Takayama & Meiro Koizumi” Presents Chilling Reminders of Fukushima to Ginza shoppers’, Tokyo Stages, 9 August 2015, https://tokyostages.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/demarcation-akira-takayama-meiro-koizumi-fukshima/, accessed 17 September 2018.

31 Sarah Keartes, ‘Here's Your Go-to Source for Debunking all the Fukushima Fables’, Earthtouch News, 25 February 2016, https://www.earthtouchnews.com/oceans/oceans/heres-your-go-to-source-for-debunking-all-the-fukushima-fables/, accessed 9 May 2018.

32 Hana to Sakana, Japanese Drama Database, Performing Arts Network Japan, http://www.performingarts.jp/e/data_drama/theater/d-00175.html, accessed 28 June 2018.

33 Ibid.

34 Radioactive Forest, NHK documentary S13E01, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbO3zXcsD7s, accessed 15 September 2018.

35 Portia Nillos-Kleiven, ‘Replication of Apo Island's Example to Other Villages in the Philippines’, EcoTipping Points, http://www.ecotippingpoints.org/our-stories/indepth/philippines-apo-marine-sanctuary-coral-reef-fishery.html#update, accessed 9 October 2017.

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38 Duncan Macmillan's Lungs (2011) attempts to present the ecological paradoxes in contemporary life. See Diamond, Catherine, ‘Staging Global Warming, the Genre-Bending Hyperobject’, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 30, 2 (Spring 2016), pp. 101–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.