http://performingarts.jp performingarts.jp http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1.html Playwright and director Kenji Higashi is the leader of the theater company Gekidan Sajiki Douji. His plays use the power of group performances and sordid but elaborate stage design in spaces like warehouses to depict people living in delusion at the lower depths of society. The impact of his plays set in places like the coal-mining town where he was born and raised or small villages in the mountains is unique on today’s theater scene in Japan. In this interview we seek some of the origins of the art of this playwright who has garnered so much attention today as winner of the 47th Kinokuniya Theater Prize individual artist award, the 20th Yomiuri Theater Awards Best Director Prize and the 16th Tsuruya Namboku Memorial Drama Award. http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1304/1.html Two years have passed since the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011. Today there are folk arts of the region that are bringing inspiration and courage to the people of the stricken areas. One of them is Kuromori Kagura, a precious tradition of ritual dance and music officially recognized as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Asset and performed by practitioners who travel from village to village over a wide area of the Sanriku coast of Northeastern Japan as a form of spiritual pilgrimage. To learn about the current state of Kuromori Kagura and its preservation, we spoke with Hiroki Tanaka, leader of the youth league of Kagura performers. http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1303/1.html After leading Japan’s contemporary dance world since its nascent period with her dance company Leni-Basso, Akiko Kitamura suspended activities the group in 2009 to pursue other projects. Drawn to Indonesian culture after her encounter with the country’s traditional martial arts form Pencak Silat, her ongoing research eventually led to an international collaboration with Indonesian artists that produced the new work “To Belong - dialogue,” which premiered in 2012. Kitamura talks about her collaborative work Indonesian artists and its place in her life work in a 3-hour interview. http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1302/1.html Kazue Sawai is a “Sokyoku” (traditional Japanese harp music) player who has continued to venture into new realms with her instrument, with connections to Western classical music, contemporary music, jazz and improvisational performance. Since a recital in 1979 that won her the Award of Excellence in the music division of the National Arts Festival organized by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, Sawai has continued to run at the forefront in Japan’s Sokyoku world as an avant-garde presence, expanding her musical activities in collaborations with musicians and composers such as Toshi Ichiyanagi, Yuji Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cage and Sofia Gubaidulina. In 2011 Sawai launched into a new challenge with the start of her “Two Maestros” tour with fellow Sokyoku player Souju Nosaka. This interview explores Sawai’s varied and prominent career. http://performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1.html With a population of about 4.5 million, Ireland is by no means a large country, but it does have one quite active base of contemporary dance in the dance house named Dance Ireland. Its artistic program manager is Elisabetta Bisaro, who comes to Ireland from Italy. In this interview we hear her views on the little-known world of Irish contemporary dance, the organization’s network with the EU and how artists are being supported and nurtured in Ireland today. http://performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1304/1.html In 2008, the Republic of Korea’s capital of Seoul launched a program called “Seoul Art Space” with the purpose of renovating public facilities and sites such as unused factory buildings in the city for use as community bases for the arts and culture. Among these art spaces, the center of much attention today is the Mullae Arts Village, which was opened in an area of old ironwork shops that artists had come to live in. In this interview we speak with the manager of Mullae Arts Village, Suh Myung-Gu, who hopes to make it a next-generation arts support base where artists and the local community come together to generate new arts and culture. http://performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1303/1.html National Theatre Wales (NTW) has launched on a new course in theater that has no theater facility to base its activities in but instead engages local communities in site-specific projects at such venues as libraries, military bases and coalmines. It has created an online community with its website to conduct activities as a “theatre without walls.” This interview with artistic director John McGrath explores this unique undertaking. http://performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1302/1.html In 2008, George Town on the island of Penang in Malaysia was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. In 2010, the George Town Festival was launched in the old section of the city with its historical architecture from the British colonial period. The Festival’s inviting mix of an ambitious program featuring world–renowned artists, attractive venues and appealing local arts and culture have quickly made it one of the most talked-about festivals in Southeast Asia. We spoke with the festival’s director, Joe Sidek about the global strategy behind this new festival. http://performingarts.jp/E/play/1.html This is a play born in collaboration with the playwright workshop program of the Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo. The story is about the Kamiyama family of four who run a small factory in regional town named Kanawa. The eldest son, Kiyotake is in training to take over the family factory and his talented younger brother Kiyomi works at a general trading company. After Kiyomi is removed from his job assignment after suffering an injury, the family is made a fool of by their preposterous uncle Reiji, who, while working as a househusband, is pursuing his important “mission” of maintaining the balance of the world. http://performingarts.jp/E/play/1.html This play is a representative work of Kenji Higashi, the leader of the theater company Gekidan Sajiki Douji. It is the winner of a trio of awards, in the 47th Kinokuniya Theater Prize individual artist award, the 20th Yomiuri Theater Awards Best Director Prize and the 16th Tsuruya Namboku Memorial Drama Award. The play portrays the failure of a coal mining company that had attempted to build a Utopia, while also telling the story of Hajime, the sickly son of the mine owner who is led by the “god of retarded children” to launch a fantasy locomotive in the “Sea of Tears” that lies beneath the mine. http://performingarts.jp/E/play/1303/1.html This play is the winner of the 16th (2012) Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award. It is the first play to emerge from the Setagaya Public Theatre’s “Playwright’s Workshop” program. Takeshi Kawamura wrote this play as a work in progress resulting from his attempts to explore “the possibilities of monologue” through drama readings and the like. In the play, five people chosen as jurors, including a university staff member, a Minister of Justice, a detention center correctional officer, a prisoner sentenced to death and a nondescript “man,” speak their minds while rotating among the five roles. http://performingarts.jp/E/society/1.html Based on the campus of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), STUK is one of Belgium’s leading arts support NPOs. Its predecessor was “’t Stuc,” a student organization founded in the latter half of the 1970s to run an arts center. In 2001, it merged with the international contemporary dance festival KLAPSTUK to form a new organization named STUK. In 2002, after major renovation of its current building, STUK opened as a well-equipped comprehensive arts center where residencies and other programs are now held. http://performingarts.jp/E/society/1.html Established as a government agency named the Korea Culture and Arts Foundation in 1973, the organization was later restructured by a committee of private sector specialists as the Arts Council Korea in August of 2005. Led by a committee of 10 professionals in the various areas of the arts, the Council makes proposals on arts and culture policy, operates support programs for the arts and international exchange, arts welfare programs and community programs, as well as operating arts and culture facilities. The organization operates on an annual budget of approximately 400 billion Korean won (2010 status). http://performingarts.jp/E/society/1303/1.html UNIMA is an international NGO under the auspices of UNESCO that brings together people from around the world who contribute to the development of the art of puppetry. Founded originally in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1929, the organization moved its offices in Charleville-Mézières, France in 1980. Presently, the UMIMA Congress is held once every four years on a rotating basis among the member countries and a large-scale world puppetry festival is held in conjunction with it. http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_2 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_3 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_4 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_5 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_6 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_7 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_8 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_9 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics1_10 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics2_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics2_2 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics1_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics2_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics2_2 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics2_3