Writing about theatre and performance in Japan and beyond
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…
A chapter I wrote on a site-specific production by the erstwhile Osaka-based theatre company Ishinha was published in a new book looking at the company’s work and legacy.
This article explores key elements of Hiroko Tanahashi’s life and career as a multimedia artist who creates immersive worlds for Post Theater in Berlin and Stuttgart.
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, Issue 3, Dec. 2018. 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….
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…
Andrew Eglinton 