Radiografía del underground: la irrupción del angura en Japón y el paradigma de Kinjiki de Tatsumi Hijikata

Abstract

The underground has its most immediate precedent in the 1950s, under the influence of the Beat Generation and American avant-garde cinema. The term “underground” was applied in this context in the 1960s, and it is in those years that it also began to be used in Japan, usually as a synonym for avant-garde. Among the various personalities who stood out within the Japanese underground, there is one who, due to his influence, personality and constant activity in those years, we can highlight as one of the greatest exponents of this trend. I am referring to the dancer Hijikata Tatsumi 土方巽 (1928-1986), founder of ankoku butō 暗黒舞踏 [dance of darkness]. Although there is research and literature on the Japanese underground, usually known by the diminutive angura アングラ, the topics usually revolve around angura theatre, experimental film, avant-garde music, or the flowering of intermedia in Japanese countercultural art. The figure of Hijikata usually appears as part of the context of the period, but there is no research that delves into his direct relationship with the counterculture from a protagonist position. This article, therefore, aims to analyse the characteristics of the underground in order, firstly, to establish a link with the figure of Hijikata and, secondly, to find out whether he really deserves to be placed as one of the most important personalities of angura in Japan.