The Spectacular Society

choregraphy, marissa osato . calarts . mfa thesis . march 2018

Using the U.S. government-sanctioned Japanese internment camps during WWII as a dramaturgical framework, “The Spectacular Society” interweaves evocative movement, live sound, and unconventional spatialization to explore how ethnicity and identity can be negotiated and performed. This intimate 60-minute performance follows seven dancers through vignettes of calm and chaos as they explore themes of dislocation, witnessing, silence, patriotism, community, and spectacle. Drawing from both historical research and her grandmother’s personal accounts of “camp,” choreographer Marissa Osato employs visceral, intricate, and highly-charged contemporary dance movement to re/present an embodied archive of the past while provoking questions about present societal repetition.