http://performingarts.jp performingarts.jp http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1.html Shu Matsui has made a name as one of the leading young playwrights in Japan today by winning the 55th Kishida Drama Award (2010). After a period with Oriza Hirata’s theater company Seinendan, known for its contemporary colloquial drama style, Matsui started his own company Sample in 2007. His Kishida Award-winning play “Jiman no Musuko” explores the theme of living a passive life through plots evolving around a stay-at-home middle-aged son who has become king of his own one-room kingdom and his mother who comes in search of him. We talked with Matsui about the unique reality of passive existence his works depict, where people’s lives are not necessarily guided by the choices they make. http://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1104/1.html Since founding the Kaaitheater international festival in Brussels in 1977, Hugo De Greef has been instrumental in bringing the world the so-called “Flemish wave” of performing artists of the Flanders region of Belgium, including such greats as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jan Lauwers. Through efforts such as co-founding the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM), he has worked to build the foundation for contemporary performing arts in Belgium. Here is an interview with this key European presenter. http://performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1104/1.html The National Performance Network (NPN) is a project initiated by the contemporary dance-specific organization Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) in answer to the rapid growth in contemporary performing arts organizations around the U.S. and with the mission of increasing opportunities for performance tours and improving the environment for performing artists. NPN was spun off from DTW in 1997 as an independent NPO and employs unique strategies in providing grants for commissioning new works a support system for artist tours. The organization’s CEO and driving force, MK Wegmann, speaks about NPN programs and background. http://performingarts.jp/E/play/1.html The protagonist of this play is the successful businessman Masutaka Harumi, who started as a bar owner in a small fishing town in Kyushu’s Oita prefecture and expanded into tuna fish farming and a chain of sushi restaurants. Jumping back and forth between a time in the near future when trips to the moon have become commonplace and the past, the play explores the contradictions of people’s lives through the history of Harumi’s upbringing and a group of characters involved in it and the problems they struggled with—troubled relations between Japan and China, childhood bullying, racism, marine environmental issues, fanatical animal protection movements, etc. The play was selected as a finalist for the 2010 Kishida Drama Award. http://performingarts.jp/E/society/1.html Pro Helvetia was founded in 1939 on the eve of the Second World War with the aim of protecting and preserving the independence Swiss cultural identity. In 1949 it was incorporated under law as the Swiss Arts Council. Its grants program was expanding in 1965 with the aims “to preserve and maintain Switzerland’s cultural identity, with particular attention to folk culture,” “to promote cultural creativity, on the basis of the situation in the cantons, in the linguistic regions and in cultural circles,” “to encourage cultural exchange among the linguistic regions and cultural circles within Switzerland” and “to foster cultural relations with other countries.” 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#topics2_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics2_2 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/index.html#topics2_3 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics1_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics1_2 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics1_3 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics1_4 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics2_1 http://performingarts.jp/E/topics/indexjf.html#topics3_1