Writing about theatre and performance in Japan and beyond
Theatre E9 Kyoto was launched in June 2019 and has quickly gained a reputation for producing challenging performance work. What’s at stake in creating a new black box theatre in 2019-2020? How does it tie into the wider regional and national theatre scene?
The 10th edition of Kyoto Experiment marked the end of a decade-long labor of love for Yusuke Hashimoto, who stepped down as program director and passed the baton on to three new co-directors. What impact has this performing arts event had at home and abroad? What are some of the milestones in its story so far?
This article was originally published in the Japan Times newspaper on August 14 2019. Since the late 1970s, people from all over the world have traveled to the village of Toga in rural Toyama Prefecture to attend Tadashi Suzuki’s renowned acting classes or to see the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) and other invited artists…
This article was originally published in The Japan Times newspaper on July 30 2019. The political function of art is a perennial question in the field of aesthetics. In classical Athens, Plato argued that art as a form of imitation was limited in its ability to communicate knowledge about political life. In contrast, Aristotle saw…
Paper given at the Contemporary Japanese Theatre Workshop, Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, in Tokyo, July 27, 2019. This paper is part of a larger research project, co-conducted with Mika Eglinton, called “Japanese Women on the Move: Migration, Memory and Gender in Contemporary Performance.” The project draws on in-depth interviews with internationally renowned practitioners from Japan…
Article published in the International Association of Performing Language (IAPL) Journal, Vol 3. Pp. 1-25. Read the article in full here. Abstract The term “Living Newspaper” or zhivaya gazeta originated in Russia during the October Revolution of 1917. It refers to public readings of party political news for audiences in (mostly) rural locations. During the…
Paper given at the ILA Conference on Learner Autonomy at Konan Women’s University, September 5th — September 8th, 2018. Abstract In their analysis of autonomy in the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, Nicolaides and Fernandes (2008) outline two broad strands in the theory and practice of learner autonomy in education. The first follows Henri Holec’s…
Paper given at the International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (IFTR) in Belgrade, July 12, 2018, as part of the Choreography and Corporeality Working Group. The premise behind Takuya Murakawa’s “Independent Living” 2017, is deceptively simple. An audience member is invited to play the role of a patient. S/he is instructed to lie in silence…
Review of The Winter’s Tale, dir. by Satoshi Miyagi at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre, Shizuoka, 11 February 2017. Published in Shakespeare Studies, Vol 55, 2017. Pp. 47-50. Production trailer Time lapse video of the stage construction for The Winter’s Tale
This article was originally published in the Japan Times newspaper on February 20 2018. How do you make a thousand-year-old story resonate with an audience in Osaka today? Tell them that you plan to radically modernize one of the most famous literary works ever to come out of Japan to fit present concerns. The centerpiece…
