The cult-sounding intensity of Shuiji Terayama’s (寺山修司) world, known as Tenjo Sajiki (天井桟敷), is like going into a forbidden area of a room, and being confronted with something that can be disturbing, but also liberating. Terayama is a writer, essayist, poet, playwright, and filmmaker. His theater group was Tenjo Sajiki, the Underground art force of Tokyo, during the 1960s and early 1970s. Like the Warhol and Rainer Werner Fassbinder landscape, these citizens of the underground theater were artists who had a group or organization backing them under their strict observations of such a group. Yet, within that group were creative artists, but under the supervision of the grand artist. Terayama, in a sense, was a radical version of Yukio Mishima, if that is possible.
The mysterious J.A. Seazer (Terahara Takaaki)) is, in a sense, Terayama’s music director and composer. He’s part of Tenjo Sajiki, and a few albums out there focus on his work with Terayama, such as Jashumon (1972) and 身毒丸 (1978), which are theatrical works. Both albums are an incredible snapshot of Boheimin Tokyo circa the 1960s, with its boundaries being extended musically and what I presume lyrically. When I do a Google translation of some of J.A. Seazer’s lyrics, it’s very counterculture but not hippy-dippy. It is like a darker version of the musical Hair. Attacked by a super time attack/Attacked by a super hypocrisy attack/Attacked by a super greed attack/ Attacked by a super cruelty attack/Attacked by a super uncertainty attack/Attacked by a super plague attack/Attacked by a super nature attack/Attacked by a super bacteria attack (Revolutionary Girl Utena – Chikyuu Keimusho Panopticon by J.A. Seazer)
For further info on the world of Terayama in English, check out his books:
The Crimson Thread of Abandon Stories (MerwinAsia, 2014
When I Was a Wolf (Kurodahan Press, 2020)
A good book in English on Terayama is Japanese Counterculture: The Antiestablishment Art of Terayama Shuji by Steven C. Ridgely (Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2011)
Shuiji Terayama’s Filmography here
J.A. Seazer’s Discography from Discogs.
And TokyoScope by Patrick Macias has a very good post on Terayama. Read down below:
TOKYOSCOPE.
This is fascinating Tosh. I’m going to find the films at Archive.org. Thanks!
Superfine reveries.