Kyoto performance reviews

--> The Children and the Animals came onto the streets Tokyo Metropolitan Art Center May 5 th 2019 http://www.19-27.co.uk/the-animals-and-children The charming black-humor children’s production with the somewhat leading name was performed during the Golden Week, when parents had a full ten days to fill with appropriate entertainment. The play had been described by The Guardian as part Dickens, part Kafka, part Pantomime, part silent film, and lived up to its billing. Like Lemony Snicket and Tim Burton, and the Gorey aesthetic they dwell upon, these young performers know how to amuse and educate, while tapping the dark side. Their Golem—seen in full on YouTube—was a more mature work, far-reaching in its social significance for the moment. But Children similarly hit a delicate nerve to provoke curiosity, disgust, and amusement.             The Troupe evoke the silent film era of camerawork, faded colors...

--> Cinnamon by Teshigahara Saburo at Theatre X: Appreciating dance/narrative tracks May 4 th 2019 730p.m. show Teshigara Saburo performed a revival of Cinnamon based on a short story by Bruno Schulz (Street of crocodiles). The story depicts in direct, lyric manner an unusual evening for a young boy, sent home from church by his father. Getting lost when taking a shortcut home in the evening cold, he passes the small shops selling oddities he nicknames “cinnamon shops,” visits his school, where the presence of the principal lurks and strange specimens leap out of the cupboards and exhibits, then takes a horse and carriage galloping in the forest before returning home. There is wonderful mood evocation but little drama in this surreal fantasy, a gloomy, rumination on snow, night, fear, and sacrifice. What Teshigahara has done is express in dance a parallel story. A female (!) voice reads the tale, significantly edited, pausing from time to time. Two dancers ente...

“Traditionalizing” the expressionist body I attended one and two-thirds nights of the Second International Butoh Festival at the tiny Seedbox Theatre in southern Kyoto on May 1 and 2 (continuing through 4th). https://www.facebook.com/events/440822160008397/?notif_t=plan_user_invited&notif_id=1555766739292030 There I discovered that the performances doing “butoh” today stretch from old-style, white-powder writhers to conceptual performance artists with projections, to shamanistic healers. Each performance lasted about 15-20 minutes, seemingly in no particular order, with 12 performances per evening. The Festival is a testament to Katsura Kan, former Byakkosha member whose performances and teaching around the world have stimulated a number of satellite companies, a network of performers who attended this butoh summit in Kyoto during Golden Week. While particular performances stick out in my mind, they stimulated more generally my thinking about the state of the genre. * * Bu...

Re-viving the 1981 Noho Theatre Group play Act without words 1 May 6 2019   Kinokuniya Southern Theatre 新作 Classics https://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/c/label/20190125110000.html Although I've been studying it for nearly four decades, the nuances of Tradition in Japanese performing arts continue to fascinate me. In 1981, fresh to Japan and Kyoto, I happened to run into traditional kyogen comedian Shigeyama Akira, and we decided to form the Noho Theatre Group as a one-time only project. Since I didn’t know much Japanese nor he much Japanese, we decided to perform Samuel Beckett’s short mime masterpieces, Act without words 1 and 2 at the Studio Varie café-theatre near Kyoto University. 38 years later, we are reviving the first play, again with Akira performing and myself directing, this time with his son Sennojo (newly-renamed from Doji, whom I directed in his stage debut, age 4, as “Water” in Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice )   producing it on a ...