Author: Fan-Ting Cheng, 台灣文學與跨國文化研究所 (Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature), 國立臺灣大學 (National Taiwan University) - Academia.edu, ORCID

Abstract: »The movement for Taiwan's comfort women to seek redress from Japan, which began in the 1990s, has persistently failed to secure formal acknowledgment or comprehensive compensation from the Japanese government. In the context of Cold War legacies and current geopolitical tensions, the passing of the last known surviving Taiwanese comfort woman in 2023 highlights the increasing difficulty of addressing the issue. This event underscores the urgent human rights concerns intricately linked with historical traumas, war narratives, and systems of gendered violence. Over the past three decades, organizations such as Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation have mobilized campaigns for survivors, providing them with care and emotional counseling. These efforts have also stimulated the diverse development of cultural and artistic creations centered on the theme of comfort women. In this context, Taiwanese theater addressing the issue of comfort women has gradually gained attention. However, as victims of sexual violence during wartime, comfort women often occupy a state of what this essay calls as "folded intersectionality," rendering their experiences difficult to approach or discuss. Current research and critiques of comfort women theater remain confined within debates over the sufficiency of historical documentation and the appropriateness of historical translation. This narrow focus neglects the inherent double paradox of comfort women theatre-namely, the impossibility of absolute historical representation and the contradiction between the desire to stage representation and the survivors' reluctance to be represented. In light of this, this essay examines theater and performing arts centered on the theme of comfort women in Taiwan, analyzing the interaction between aesthetic strategies and social movements and their subsequent impacts, with a special focus on The Party Theatre's Burning Butterfly (2022). This production portrays the tragic stories of Taiwanese comfort women, employing two distinct yet interconnected approaches. On one hand, it utilizes abstract puppet theater to represent the historical tragedy, allegorizing the unrepresentability of the comfort women's traumatic experiences. On the other hand, it incorporates realistic performances to articulate present trauma, exposing through the collapse of narrative frameworks the violent homogenization of the subaltern and bare life. In doing so, the play gestures toward the "shared unshareability" forged through the theatrical translation of history.« (Source: Airiti Library)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of China / History of the Republic of China, History of Taiwan (1945–present) | History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | Prostitution: Forced prostitution / Comfort women | Sex and the law: Wartime sexual violence / Wartime sexual violence in World War II | War: Pacific War / Japanese war crimes