Event: An Introduction to Japanese Contemporary Theatre - Workshop & Talk
Monday 6th November, New Adelphi Studio
Including
‘Democracy As A Verb’, workshop by Yuta Hagiwara,
‘A Very Short Introduction To Contemporary Japanese Theatre’, Talk by Professor Tadashi Uchino
Date: Monday 6th November 2023
Schedule:
Talk: ‘A Very Short Introduction to Contemporary Japanese Theatre’
by Tadashi Uchino, 1.30-2.30pm
Workshop by Yuta Hagiwara, 3pm-6pm
Venue
New Adelphi Studio Theatre, New Adelphi Building, Peel Park Campus
Places
The talk is open to all.
The workshop has space for approx 15 participants.
It is suitable for anyone, even if you have no experience of Japanese or Contemporary Performance. It is in English. Japanese-to-English translators will also be present. Please wear comfortable clothing.
Both the workshop and the talk are free. To register for the workshop, you can reserve using Ticketsource HERE or use the link and QR in the image above or email r.talbot@salford.ac.uk
This workshop is offered FREE of charge thanks to the funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council through NWCDTP. It is part of a wider series of events under the umbrella of Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange which is also additionally funded by Japan Foundation London Grant Programme.
What is the workshop about?
"Democracy as a Verb", led by Yuta Hagiwara, Tokyo-based theatre director of Kamome Machine.
The workshop is based on the company's approach to practical contemporary performance and on Hagiwara’s ongoing research in which he uses his body to contemplate democracy. For Hagiwara, this is like 'bodybuilding' for performance,
‘“Democracy” - we are lost together like children in this uncertain concept that undoubtedly affects our bodies’.
Yuta Hagiwara has been creating works focused on the concept of ‘public’ since 2007. In his works, he explores this common, yet uncertain term theatrically through the body. This approach has led to performances such as site-specific Waiting for Godot in Fukushima (2011), staged shortly after the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Oregayo (2015 -) which uses the Japanese Constitution as its text and Telephone Theatre Series performed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hagiwara is currently residing in New York where he researches the relationship between democracy and theatre as Asian Cultural Council Fellow.
Yuta Hagiwara
Yuta Hagiwara is a theatre director and the leader of Kamome Machine company based in Tokyo. He started working in theatre while a student at Waseda University. He won the 13th Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Award and the Toga Engeki Jin Konkūru Award in 2016; Directing credits include Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, performed after Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and Telephone Theatre Series in which the actors perform one-on-one performances for a single spectator over a telephone. In 2018 he participated in Theatertreffen International Forum in Berlin. He is a Saison Fellow 1 for 2022-23.
Conditions
N.B.
There will be a small task to complete before the workshop. Confirming your articipation indicats that you will complete the following assignment in advance:
“What is your impression of democracy? Please draw a picture symbolizing democracy and send it along with an explanation of about 50 words.
The workshop is preceded by an INTRODUCTORY TALK from 1.30-2.30pm in the New Adelphi Studio. You should aim to attend that too. The talk is free, there's no need to book, just turn up a few minutes beforehand.
Talk:
Very Short Introduction to Contemporary Japanese Theatre’ by Tadashi Uchino, Professor of Performance Studies, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Gakushuin Women’s College, Tokyo.
with a response by
Beri Juraic
Speakers
Tadashi Uchino
Tadashi Uchino received his MA in American Literature (1984) and Ph.D. in Performance Studies (2001), both from the University of Tokyo. He was a professor of Performance Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992-2017) and is currently a professor of Performance Studies at the Department of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Gakushuin Women’s College. He was given a title of Professor Emeritus from The University of Tokyo in 2019. Uchino is a leading performance studies scholar, whose border-crossing between Japan and the US, Japan and Europe, and Japan and other parts of Asia, including India, has been critically acclaimed in various interdisciplinary quarters of academics, artists and activists. His publication includes The Melodramatic Revenge: Theatre of the Private in the 1980s (in Japanese, Tokyo: Keiso Publishing,1996), From Melodrama to Performance: The Twentieth Century American Theatre (in Japanese, Tokyo: U. of Tokyo P, 2001), Crucible Bodies: Postwar Japanese Performance from Brecht to the New Millennium (2009, London: Seagull Books) and The Location of J Theatre: Towards Transnational Mobilities (in Japanese, 2016, U of Tokyo Press). Twice a recipient of the Fulbright Grant (1986-7, 97-8), Uchino has served in many Japanese academic societies, including a board member for the Society of Studies of Culture and Representation (06-18). He is a contributing editor for TDR (1998-2013, 2018-) and is currently an editor for Dance Research Journal of Korea. His expertise is widely recognized in performance communities and is a member of board of directors for Kanagawa Arts Foundation, the Saison Foundation and Arts Council Tokyo, and of selection committee for Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize and a member of ZUNI Icosahedron’s Artistic Advisory Committee.
Beri Juraic
Beri Juraic is an AHRC funded PhD candidate at Lancaster University. His research interests concern post-war and contemporary Japanese theatre and performance, postdramatic theatre, aurality, multilingual theatre, theatre and migration and liminality in theatre-making and research. He has published in Asian Theatre Journal and Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques. For his PhD project, he is researching the aesthetics of crossing borders in the works of Peru-born Japanese playwright and director Yudai Kamisato using Japanese and European theories and concepts. Prior to academia, he worked as a theatre producer and a festival programmer in the UK and abroad. His encounters with contemporary Japanese theatre are documented on his blog which can be consulted here:http://www.kiretsuzuki.com/rethinking-writing-on-the-stagehttps://www.critical-stages.org/27/kyoto-experiment-re-thinking-the-festival-as-a-constant-work-in-progress/Recent conference paper:Juraic, B. (2023) Ghosts of War: The Sounds of the Uncanny in Kamisato Yudai's Immigrant Ghost Stories. In: European Association for Japanese Studies 2023 Conference. University of Ghent, Belgium. - presented on 20 August 2023.