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July 28, 2010 |
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 | Festival/Tokyo (F/T) 2010 Program Announcement as of July 2010 |
| | Now to be held for the 3rd time, following Spring and Autumn festivals in 2009, the 3rd international performing arts festival “Festival/Tokyo (F/T) 2010” announces its preliminary program line-up of.
Highlighting the works from Japan is a new work set to the music of the contemporary composer Ligeti by Saburo Teshigawara, the internationally renowned dancer and director who has also won high acclaim recently for his art and video creations. Another new work in contemporary dance will be presented by Ikuyo Kuroda with the title Akari no Tomoru Kagami no Kuzu (Shining fragments of mirror).
As an international collaboration, Shiro Takatani of dumb type and the sculptor of mist, Fujiko Nakaya, join in the Asian premiere of the work This is how you will disappear (tentative title) with the French female puppeteer Vienne Gisèle, an artist known for creating a unique artistic world employing puppets of her own creation. Also on the program will be an audience-participation play titled Public Domain (tentative title) by the Barcelona-based Spanish artist Roget Bernat, known for his explorations of the potential of performance in public places, and appearing for the first time in Japan, the post-drama theater master Christoph Marthaler will present a production of Riesenbutzbach with stage art by Anna Viebrock, an stage artist who has also served as director at the Paris Opera House in recent years.
This year’s festival will also see the start of the new “F/T Open Applicant Program” that will provide a wide range of promising artists of the next generation to apply for support in staging their own productions. There are numerous companies from around the country scheduled to participate.
More announcements will be made as additional performances are confirmed. For details see the F/T homepage.
| + | F/T Performances (invited works)
KARAS new work (title undecided)
Direction, art, lighting, costumes, music selection: Saburo Teshigawara
This Is How You Will Disappear (tentative title)
Composition, direction, choreography, stage art: Vienne Gisèle (France) / Video: Shiro Takatani / Mist sculpture: Fujiko Nakaya / Text: Dennis Cooper
Public Domain (tentative title)
Director: Roget Bernat (Spain)
Riesenbutzbach (tentative translation: Giant Butzbach Village)
Director: Christoph Marthaler (Switzerland) / Stage art: Anna Viebrock (Germany)
Port B new work (title undecided)
Composition, direction: Akira Takayama
Akari no Tomoru Kagami no Kuzu (Shining fragments of mirror)
Choreography, direction: Ikuyo Kuroda
Gotanda-dan new work (title undecided)
Written and directed by Shiro Maeda
Marebito no Kai new work (title undecided)
Written and directed by Masataka Matsuda
Chiten new work (title undecided)
Director: Motoi Miura
And others |
| + | Festival/Tokyo10 (F/T10)
Dates: Oct. 30 – Nov. 28, 2010
Venue: Tokyo Arts Theater (Middle Hall/Small Hall), Owlspot, Nishi-sugamo Arts Factory, Theatre Green, Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan, others
http://festival-tokyo.jp/en/
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| English version of THEATER IN JAPAN: An Overview of Performing Arts and Artists published |
| | The Japan Foundation has recently published the English edition of its publication THEATER IN JAPAN: An Overview of Performing Arts and Artists.
This collection consists of two parts. The first presents commentary on the latest developments of the Japanese contemporary performing arts scene, while the second part focuses primarily on the representative small-theater drama of Japan’s contemporary theater scene, as well as introductions of companies in genre such as puppet theater and performance. Details are as follows.
Since 1989, the Japan Foundation has been publishing English-language handbooks and CD-ROMs introducing Japan’s performing arts to the foreign audience on an ongoing basis. The books published until now in this series include an introduction to theater and dance artists titled Theater Japan (1989, 1993), an overview of contemporary theater, contemporary dance, butoh, contemporary music and popular music titled Performing Arts Now in Japan (1995), an introduction to the latest trends in performing arts and the artists of the contemporary theater, contemporary dance and traditional Japanese music (Hogaku) titled Performing Arts in Japan 2003 (2003) and an introduction to the younger generation of Hogaku artists titled Performing Arts in Japan: Traditional Music Today (2005) among others. And, from 2004, Japan Foundation has been presenting information about the artists of Japan’s contemporary performing arts to a large international audience via this Performing Arts Network Japan website.
THEATER IN JAPAN: An Overview of Performing Arts and Artists and Performing Arts in Japan: Traditional Music Today will be available at arts markets both in Japan and abroad and plans call for their contents to be added to this website’s archive in the near future. If you wish to acquire these publications, please contact us at the address below.
*TO OUR READERS:
Errors have occurred regarding our recent publication THEATER IN JAPAN—An Overview of Performing Arts and Artists. We sincerely apologize for the following errors and any inconvenience this has caused our readers.
May 2008
The Japan Foundation
1.
Page 49: Tengai AMANO’s “Yaji Kita” Mayonaka no Yaji-san Kita-san
[Error] First staged by: Shonen Oja Kan
[Correct] First staged by: KUDAN Project
2.
Page 80: Stage Photo must be corrected on Akio MIYAZAWA’s “Entrance to New Town” Nyutaun iriguchi
[Correct]
Original title: Nyûtaun iriguchi
English title: Entrance to New Town
Photo: Ariga Ketsu
| + | THEATER IN JAPAN: An Overview of Performing Arts and Artists – Contents
Part I
Overview of Performing Arts in Japan/ Latest Trends in Each Genre
Overview of Performing Arts in Japan
_ Trends in Cultural Policies Concerning International Exchange in Performing Arts
_ Current Status and Trends in Private-Sector Support for the Arts and Culture
_ The Latest Trends in Public Theaters and Concert Halls
_ Trends in Performing Arts Presenters and Arts NPOs
_ Invigorating the Performing Arts Through Visiting Productions and Taking Japanese Productions Overseas
_ Arts Management Education in Universities
_ Performing Arts in Japan on the Internet
Latest Trends in Each Genre
_ Small Theater (Shogekijo) Movement: Background and Recent Trends
_ The Most Recent Trends in Contemporary Dance
_ The Latest Trend of Kabuki, No, and Bunraku, Japan’s Traditional Performing Arts
_ Contemporary Rendition of Traditional Styles of Japanese Music (Hogaku)
Part II
Artist/Company Profiles
_ Contemporary Theater
_ Puppet Theater
_ Performance Art |
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| Artist interview collection from this website, Energizing Japanese Culture: The Performing Arts in Japan, released! |
| | Since going online in December 2004, this website, Japan Foundation’s “Performing Arts Network Japan” has posted a new interview with a Japanese artist each month. Taking the 30th update of website this summer as an appropriate occasion a collection of the first 30 artist interviews has been compiled into a book that is being published on October 10 from the publisher Suiyosha Inc. The contents of the interviews have been edited to some degree and the result is a collection that we believe presents a vivid cross-section of the depth and vitality of Japan’s contemporary culture and the great diversity of expression it encompasses, while also offering a definitive overview of what is happening in today’s performing arts scene. This book will be sold in bookstores throughout Japan. For orders or inquiries about this book from overseas, contact the editorial department of Performing Arts Network Japan at: (info@performingarts.jp).
| + | Energizing Japanese Culture: The Performing Arts in Japan
(Performing Arts ni miru – Nihonjin no Bunkaryoku)
Messages for the world from 30 leading artists in field ranging from the traditional Japanese arts to contemporary dance
Editorial Review: From the World Heritage traditional arts of Noh and Kabuki theater to Japanese traditional music, theater and contemporary dance, the performing arts of Japan today are world renowned for their diversity and depth of expression and living proof of the cultural dynamism of the Japanese. Here are in-depth interviews with 30 artists who speak to the world.
The artists (In order of appearance in the book)
Mansai Nomura/ Kazuyoshi Kushida/ Kojun Arai/ Oriza Hirata/ Hironori Naito/ Go Aoki/ Harue Yamagata/ Kazuki Nakashima/ Kim Ito/ Sakiko Oshima/ Toshie Tanaka/ Michiyo Yagi/ Norihiko Tsukuda/ Daisuke Miura/ Kanjuro Fujima/ Shigehiro Ide/ Ai Nagai/ Yukihiro Isso/ Yukichi Matsumoto/ Toshiki Okada/ Ikuyo Kuroda/ Yukio Ninagawa/ Shuichi Hidano/ Akaji Maro/ Ryohei Kondo/ Keishi Nagatsuka/ Yoshihiro Kurita/ Yoji Sakate/ Hiromitsu Agatsuma/ Jo Kanamori
Publisher: Suiyosha Inc.
Supervision: Japan Foundation
Editing: Institute for the Arts
Size: A5 size, 336 pages
Price: 2800 yen plus tax |
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 | Lincoln Center Festival opens (July 7 – 25, 2010) |
| | The 15th Lincoln Center Festival opens for 2010 with performances of Musashi written by Hisashi Inoue and directed by Yukio Ninagawa, and with Saburo Teshigawara’s Miroku following it. Peter Stein presents The Demons, a 12-hour adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed, for the first time in North America. Other theater pieces are a multimedia math drama titled A Disappearing Number by Simon McBurney / Complicite; Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Teorema based on Pasolini; and the Tbilisi Municipal Theatre Studio’s puppetry work The Battle of Stalingrad. Dance pieces other than Teshigawara’s include Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray by Bill T. Jones and Chui Chai by Pichet Klunchun. Wuppertal Opera presents La porta della legge, an opera composed by Salvatore Sciarrino and based on Kafka’s fable Before the Law. The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), New York Philharmonic and other musicians perform all compositions of Edgard Varèse’s in concerts entitled (R)evolution.
[Festival outline]
The Lincoln Center Festival was launched in 1996 by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) with “the idea of expanding the possibilities presented at Lincoln Center and bringing to audiences something that they could not see elsewhere” which was “a challenging goal in a city as culturally rich as New York” and “an effort to look outside the Western European canon, to broaden notions of classicism by presenting classical works from other parts of the world.” The festival presents world-class performances ranging from grand opera to chamber music and theatre to ballet and modern dance, as well as cross-over works from around the world. The artistic director is Nigel Redden.
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| Festival d’Avignon opens (June 7 – 27, 2010) |
| | The associate artists of the 64th festival in 2010 are the writer Olivier Cadiot and the director Christoph Marthaler. Marthaler premieres his musical theatre piece Papperlapapp (a German word meaning “rubbish”) that examines the history of the Palais des Papes, which used to be the symbol of religious and political power in the region. The production makes use of the Palais des Papes itself for this staging. His Schutz von der Zukunft, which was inspired by a hospital used by the Nazis for experimentation of people with mental illnesses, is also presented in its French premiere. Un mage en été and Un nid pour quoi faire by Cadiot, who has frequently been working with theatre-makers and musicians, are staged by the director Ludovic Lagarde (both are premieres), and readings by the writer himself are also scheduled. Other new creations are:
Jean-Baptiste Sastre, La Tragédie du roi Richard II
Rosas, En Atendant
Guy Cassiers, De man zonder eigenschappen I (The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil)
Francois Orsoni, Baal (by Bertolt Brecht)
Christophe Feutrier, Délire à deux (Frenzy for Two or More by Eugène Ionesco)
Jean Lambert-wild, La Mort d’Adam and Comment ai-je pu tenir là-dedans?
Christophe Huysman, L’Orchestre perdu
Falk Richter / Stanislas Nordey, My Secret Garden
Gisèle Vienne, This is How You Will Disappear
Philippe Quesne / Vivarium Studio, Big Bang
Massimo Furlan, 1973
Pierre Rigal, Micro
Faustin Linyekula, Pour en finir avec Bérénice
Les ballets C de la B, Gardenia and Out of Context: For Pina
Josef Nadj / Akosh Szelevényi, Les Corbeaux
As in years past, the festival’s “La Vingt-cinquième heure” program features performances with unconventional forms and lecture-type shows, while the “Sujets à vif” program features works created through collaborations between writers and directors or choreographers. This year’s “Territoires cinématographiques du Festival d’Avignon” film program has a focus on Jean-Luc Godard, who is said to have influenced the two associate artists. Six of his six films are to be screened, ranging from the latest Film Socialisme to La Chinoise, which premiered at Avignon Festival in 1967. In the series of lectures entitled “Théâtre des idées,” issues that are raised by the performances in this year’s program such as “What is the contemporary?” “Does the exercise of power necessarily lead to the abuse of power?” “The irony of history?” and “How can we be musical?” are discussed by philosophers, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, historians, sociologists and composers.
[Festival outline]
Launched in 1947, Festival d’Avignon is one of the leading festivals in Europe in terms of the scale and number of new works premiering at it. Since 2004 it has adopted an ?associate artist? system under which a different artist is chosen every year to select the next festival’s program. In recent years, the program includes about 40 works performed at some 20 venues around the city, with the central court of the Palais des Papes and the Carrière de Boulbon quarry as two of the main venues. Visitors during the festival total about 100,000 each year, a number roughly equal to the city?’s population. The European press regularly publishes feature articles about the Avignon Festival with daily critiques of the performances that at times spark large-scale debates in the theatre world, as was the case with the works of Jan Fabre in 2005.
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| Theater der Welt opens (June 30 – 17, 2010) |
| | For its 12th holding, the festival comes to Essen, which has been chosen as the 2010 European Capital of Culture, and Mülheim an der Ruhr. The program director is the founder of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts and De Singel festivals, Frie Leysen. She becomes the first director of the festival to be chosen from outside the German-language sphere.
The festival has not limited its program to theater and this includes more than 30 contemporary works from around the world (10 of which are world premieres). Five of the world premieres come from artists outside of Germany (Willi Dorner and Cie., Berlin, Anna Rispoli, Hans Peter Litscher, Kris Verdonck) presenting creations in the hosting Ruhr region or site-specific works. The other world premieres include the festival opening performance by Claudio Valdés Kuri (Mexico), music director Gabriel Garrido’s (Argentina) production of the baroque opera Montezuma by Carl Heinrich Graun; Romeo Castellucci presenting On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God, vol.1, the first work of his new trilogy J dealing with an ‘encounter with Jesus in his absolute absence’; shaman and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio (Samoa) presenting Birds with Sky Mirrors about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in which Samoa lies made up of waste plastic from all over the world gathered by the North Pacific Gyre; former Velvet Underground member John Cale’s live performance with film titled Dyddiau Du - Dark Days, telling the history of the coal mining town in Wales where he grew up; and the puppet play Cabaret Crusades by Wael Shawky (Egypt) recreating the story of the Crusades against abstractly drawn backdrops based on film footage taken at the sites of the original battles.
The remainder of the program is composed of high-quality contemporary works including numerous European premieres, German premieres and re-productions. There is also an ambitious lineup of non-European works, including Sarikaik performed by Eri Mefri/Nan Jombang Dance Company of Indonesia; Thai choreographer and Thai traditional dance master Pichet Klunchun’s Nijinsky Siam, in which he explores similarities between traditional Thai dance and the poses and costumes of Nijinsky; The South African State Theatre resident director Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom’s (Thailand) Welcome to Rocksburg; and the work Insomnio - Sleeplessness of director Beatriz Catani, in which the actors watch over the slow death of a cockroach. From Japan, Daisuke Miura/potudo-ru perform Yume no Shiro/Castle of Dreams for the first time overseas (European premiere) and the company faifai presents their play my name is I LOVE YOU.
[Festival Outline]
In English the festival’s name means theater of the world. It is organized jointly with the German centre of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). Since its first holding in Cologne in 1981, it has been held in a different city and with a different director each time. From 1985 to 1993 it was held in alternate years and, since 1993, once every three years. As an exception, however, in 2010 it has been held again on a biennial basis. Participating companies from Japan until now have included Shinjuku Ryozanpaku, Daisan Erotica and Ishinha.
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