@UIUC: Women Out/In Japan: Performance and Roundtable Discussion

Don't miss this exciting event here on campus!

Feminist performance artist Tari Ito and jazz musician SwingMasa will perform "Rubber Tit" in the Heritage Room at ACES Library (the octagonal building on the south quad) on Monday 9 April at 4:00. The performance will be followed by Q&A with the performers and then a roundtable discussion on female genders and sexualities in Japan with the performers as well as Elise Edwards of Butler University, our own Karen Kelsy (Head, EALC) and James Welker (PhD student, EALC).

Graduate students wishing to join Tari-san and Masa-san for lunch on Monday should contact James.



SwingMasa’s Reflections on Her Performance:

What it means to be “me” and the message of my jazz music, “Don’t Kill”:
My performance is for the recovery of “myself,” the me that is shrinking in this era of backlash and the rise of conservatism.

Tari Ito’s Reflections on Her Performance:

In the course of my daily life in Tokyo, I must face both the entrenched sexism and compulsory heterosexuality of this society. Even as I act with the hope of contributing to the visibility of lesbians, ultimately I cannot escape the feeling that I am being ignored. So—positively and with a big heart—I choose to toy with a giant rubber tit. I choose to pursue my sexual fantasies to my heart’s content. I chose the tit—a part of the body possessing a dangerous universality—with a consciousness of tits being something everyone is able to express strong feelings about, of tits being very political.