The Migration of Excess: From AI to Stand-Up Comedy in Yudai Kamisato’s Dear Potential Foreigners

Japanese urban culture in the Edo period in Japan (1603–1868) revolved around various entertainment forms. Among these forms, misemono survived well into the twentieth century. Misemono (show, exhibition, sideshow), involved all sorts of carnivalesque: magic tricks, acrobatics, dance, puppetry, freaks or ad-hoc exhibits. The form reappeared in post-war Japanese performance, most notably in the works of angura director Terayama Shūji (1935-1983).

Through a contemporary reading of misemono as a migration of excess of identities; digital and physical, virtual and real, this paper examines the latest work of Dear Potential Foreigners by Japanese writer and director Yudai Kamisato, born in Peru. This performance/installation running over two days at a gallery in a small English town of Lancaster, focused on the theme of movement, migration and tourism inspired by stories and episodes Kamisato collected in South America and Asia. It involved extensive use of AI voice and video, storytelling in different forms along with physical texts written by Kamisato and activities for the participants. Every two hours, Jerusalem-born stand-up comedian Daphna Baram would appear with her own act. Although not conceived as such, this performance could be read as a subversion of the misemono form, through a plethora of agents; performers, multilingual creative team and spectators gathering in rural instead of urban.

Combining my notes from the creative process, Kamisato’s writings and creative team’s accounts, I explore how excess, and subversion of technology, place and culture repositions theatre beyond thinking about identities in the era of artificial intelligence.

Presented in general co-sponsored panel between Asian Theatre Working Group and Intermediality WG