Translation of Kara Juro’s Mary Poppins with her Upside–down Umbrella

In March 2021, my partner Mika Eglinton and I translated the play Mary Poppins with her Upside–down Umbrella for a production at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Park in April 2021. The play was written by renowned playwright and director Kara Juro and it was directed by artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre (SPAC), Miyagi Satoshi….

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Kyoto Experiment 2021

The Kyoto Experiment (KEX) performing arts festival is marking the beginning of a new era. Not only does it have three new program directors at the helm, it also has a fresh logo and renewed focus on experimentation to boot.

Translation of Yotaro Aux Pays Des Yokai for SPAC

In November 2020, my partner Mika Eglinton and I translated the play Yotaro Aux Pays Des Yokai for a revival at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in December 2020. It was originally written and directed by French-Swiss duo Jean Lambert-Wild and Lorenzo Malaguerra and premiered at SPAC in February 2019. By popular demand, the…

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On Theatre E9, a new black box venue in Kyoto

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?

Kyoto Experiment Marks the End of an Era

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?

On the Theatre Olympics 2019 at Toga Village, Toyama

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…

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On the Performing Arts Program at the Aichi Triennale 2019

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…

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Learning to linger: on memory & migration in Eiko Otake’s movement art

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…

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