Recycling aesthetics at Toyooka Theatre Festival

I left Toyooka last weekend. During the Festival I saw far more shows than I had time to write about. Following the initial quite radical and innovative works, it seems that the Festival programme has shifted its focus to something more familiar in both content and form. I would characterise some of these performances mentioned below as a some sort of return to angura aesthetics. These aesthetics are co-opted to tell very personal stories rooted in the present, but they are definitely not angura per se and even recycle strategies employed by  other Japanese companies and directors in recent years. These diverse companies use choric strategies for individual confessions (monologization of dialogue), durational performance, pop dance and multi-dimensional scenography. Some of these performances are more successful than others.

The installation at the theatre entrance for the performance of Hazy Blues

Hazy Blues (Bonyari Burūzu) is partly gig theatre, partly physical theatre with an interesting multi-dimensional set. This performance by Nutmique company is presented as part of Director’s Program (or main programme). The company, led by director, playwright and musician Masashi Nukata, aims to create works that treat text as musical score. It starts with a musical exercise throwing out and breaking down empty or filler words such as watashi (I), ano sa (well), nani ka (something) and so. This is all too familiar as Yudai Kamisato did a similar musical exercise at the beginning of his production of Isla! Isla! Isla!. In addition, there are various angura references, such as the famous Terayama’s shoe, here in the form of a suitcase, or breaking of the back wall at the end of the first part. The latter could also be seen in the last decade in Kamisato’s Black Coffee (not for drinking) and even earlier in Kara Jūrō’s works of the 1980s. Despite these (un)conscious references, Hazy Blues manages to play with the acoustics in an interesting way. Firstly, this is done through the scenography; the stage is split on two levels. On the top level, extending into the auditorium, the performers are facing each other on sometimes three, sometimes four diametrically opposite sides. Being far apart they would initiate a repetitive word play while one of the performers would utter moshi moshi (in this context meaning – hello, are you there? to check if there is interruption) or kikoetemasuka (can you hear me?). When they are down on the stage, the performers would repeat these expressions, facing away from each other. In fact, there is little true dialogue, but a lot of choric work that requires performers to be constantly on the ball.  Later in the performance, this is complemented with recorded or live music played by one of the performers on guitar and other instruments. Such an auditive atmosphere gives a sense that we are at a rock concert (hence the reference to gig theatre), but the additional movements, the use of stones to mark the fourth wall during the performance and the experimental poem-like text present us with a rather theatrical proposition. The screens marking time during the break and before the end of the show are also familiar strategies (John Cage!). There also some poignant solo moments when one of the female performers (Chieko Asakura?) she reads out a letter and Wataru Naganuma’s hesitant performance at the beginning and ending of the show. While these are all no doubt multi-faceted and talented performers and artists, there is a sense that theatrical devices are used hastily and muddle the desired overall idea about the speaking of the unspeakable – the anxiety and uncertainty of our times.

As part of the Fringe Selection programme Yuka Hanamoto and Moe Matsuki, presented a pop-dance/queer performance entitled Lotus. According to the duo’s website, this is a sequel to the show Daisy that they performed in Kyoto in 2021 as part of a programme dealing with the theme of minorities. Lotus is about all things pink, chance encounters and giving hope. The duo unabashedly mixes various performance genres from hip-hop dance to contemporary dance, from drag performance to durational performance. In this game of chance, everyone is bound to find something interesting. The images before us are piling up one by one. The moving of the heavy speakers by the sound team early in the show immediately sets the tone. The durational part of the performance sees Hanamoto and Matsuki moving several rolls of dance floor and taping them with a pink gaffa tape while the drag performer Ito Ayari aka Honey de Masse (worked with important performance units PortB and Marebito no kai) tries to disturb them by walking or being wheeled by a white rabbit. The drag performer lipsynchs to everything from Sinead O’Connor to J-Pop dragging a book on chains from which they will later read a confession. The metaphor is not lost on the audience as they chuckle. Their performance is also somewhat visually reminiscent of Miwa Akihiro in Shūji Terayama’s Le Marie-Vision. One of the dancers will also confess their love interest later during the show. It all ends with throwing of shoes (pink). This brave performance is well-thought through as it cleverly places pop-cultural references that give us a sense of a dramaturgical concept.

I was really looking forward to company Awai’s performance, but ultimately it felt flat.  The production entitled Corona (covid) or in Japanese Kōkan (korona), also presented as part of the main programme, was meant to be a marriage between a noh-play Sumida-gawa (Sumida River) and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letters. In the end, other material such as Poe’s The Raven in French was also used, but there was little of the noh play apart from the light use of waki/shite strategies. However, the scenographer (Itaru Sugiyama) and the lighting designer (Senda Minoru) have done a marvellous job transforming the stage into a mirror-like water drop. Over the course of the performance water would drop into the middle as a time marker. The performance was done partially in French and this text was also displayed in French (not Japanese) on the backdrop and on a tassel curtain stage left. Unfortunately, the latter was very hard to read. A serious re-thinking about the concept is needed here.

Theatre books on display at Kinosaki International Arts Centre, one of the Festival venues

I also saw Satoko Ichihara’s Madama Butterfly, a co-production with Zurich’s Theater am Neumarkt which is all about demythologising the Western and Japanese gaze of each other, in particular female/male relationships. Much has been written about this production in European press so there is really nothing more to add. I attended her production of Madama Chrysanthemum at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels which I thought was a bit more interesting than this production and I have written a review of that production which will be published in due course.  

On the final day, as a part of the Fringe programme, I attended the performance of the Last Geisha by company Hydroblast, led by performer, writer and director Shingo Ota who wrote the text and performs in it. The performance also stars Kyoko Takenaka who performed in two of Ichihara’s productions mentioned above. For the production, Ota researched the vanishing geisha culture in Kinosaki Onsen, one of the cities where the Toyooka Theatre Festival took place. The two performers Takenaka and Ota were taught the dances and manners of geisha by Hidemi, ex-geisha in Kinosaki. The performance freely mixes Japanese and French (Takenaka lives in France) and also juxtaposes traditional and contemporary beats. Narratively, it tries to subvert the meaning of omotenashi (Japanese hospitality). There is a live musician playing an electric guitar on stage while the nabe pot with fresh fish tantalises our nose buds as if we were entertained at a teahouse. The comedy quickly transforms into satire in a cacophony of the two languages as they overlap. The satire comes to fore very clearly when the strobe lighting imitates taking photographs. Although they try to animate the audience which does not quite work, the performers quickly bear ground through rapping sequences. Ultimately, the performance succeeds in domesticating and foreignizing the image of the geisha.

Over the course of eleven days, I saw 16 shows, not counting a few street performances. The Festival has left me with mixed feelings as might be evident from this post. However, I am really looking forward to the long-established Kyoto Experiment, starting this weekend.