Event Details

In this second edition of Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange, we engage with the theme of encounters in theatre.

14-29 June 2024

In this second edition of Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange, we engage with the theme of encounters in theatre. What happens when we encounter the other in theatre? What are the linguistic and political implications? Just like when we cross borders, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, mistranslations and mis-deliveries are common in performances. We explore these dramaturgical processes that question the notion of crossing borders, movement, migrants and tourists.

On 14 June 2024, one of the leading experts on contemporary Japanese performance, Dr Kyoko Iwaki from the University of Antwerp will be giving a talk ‘Activating Abject in a Super-Sanitized Society: Ichihara Satoko’s Madama Butterfly’. In the talk, Iwaki will talk about how Ichihara, whose works have been touring around Europe, challenges the political violence of Puccini’s opera through the scope of women of colour dramaturgy. Her talk will be followed by a roundtable. Yudai Kamisato will also be giving a presentation about his performance installation.

The main event of this edition is the European premiere of Dear Potential Foreigners, a performance installation by the award-winning Japanese director and playwright Yudai Kamisato, who was born in Peru. Following performances in Brazil, Japan and Peru, Kamisato will be working on the theme of ‘movement’, ‘migrants’ and ‘tourists’ work with a local performer and designer culminating in a two-day installation at The Storey in Lancaster on 28 and 29 June 2024. There will also be opportunities to participate in a workshop led by Kamisato.

We are once again inviting researchers, artists, academics and students of theatre and performance to join us in re-thinking the notions of encounter and mis-delivery.

The second edition of Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council through North-West Doctoral Training Partnership, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Daiwa-Anglo Foundation, The Japan Foundation and Lancaster University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences through Postgraduate Research Funds.

For more information visit contemporarytheatrexchange.com

To book your place for Dr Kyoko Iwaki’s talk on 14 June and Kamisato’s workshop (free of charge)

Tickets for Dear Potential Foreigners will go on sale 28 May at 9am via Ticketsource

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/null/e-qljgjk

SCHEDULE

Friday, 14 June 2024

Venue: Lancaster University, Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre

10:00 – 10:10am Welcome

10:10 -11:30amTalk by Dr Kyoko Iwaki: ‘Activating Abject in a Super-Sanitized Society: Ichihara Satoko’s Madama Butterfly’ + Q&A

As many preceding scholarships have demonstrated, after thousands of remounted performances and cascades of critiques, a fair amount of understanding has been developed that the story of Madama Butterfly epitomizes the imagined orient formulated within the framework of the so-called “Spaghetti Eastern” Italian operas. By situating the Orientalist view of Madama Butterfly as a historical counterpoint, I discuss in this talk how Japanese novelist-playwright-director Ichihara Satoko (b. 1988) of Company Q, challenges the political violence of Puccini’s opera through the scope of women of color dramaturgy. Through the talk, I demonstrate how through the deliberate ‘activation of the abject,’ Ichihara aims to override the automated racialized assumptions and epistemic systems that stipulate the codified repository of imaginations cast from the other and far from the real.

Kyoko Iwaki is an Assistant Professor at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. After her career as a theatre journalist, she became a scholar specialising in Japanese and European contemporary theatre and performance who conducts research at the intersection of post-visual dramaturgies, Japanese philosophies, and theatres of catastrophes. Kyoko has published articles in various journals such as Performance Research, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. She is the co-founder of the Performing Ends: Collaborative Performance Research. She is the Associate Editor of Performance Research.

11:30 – 11:45am Break

11:45am – 12:45pm Roundtable ‘Encounters and Mis-deliveries’ with Dr Kyoko Iwaki, Dr Richard Talbot and Beri Juraic (chair: Dr Karen Juers-Munby)

12:45-1:15pm Presentation of project ‘Dear Potential Foreigners’ by Yudai Kamisato

Saturday, 15 June 2024

Venue: Lancaster University, LICA Building, A27

11:00am – 1:00pm

Workshop ‘Immigrating the Stories of Others’ with Yudai Kamisato

What happens when the stories are separated from both the original? What happens when they are translated and re-translated? In the workshop, participants will talk about strange events that they have experienced and what would happen if these stories transcended the region or country and moved or immigrated to another land? How does the story change when you change the place or language of the story?

Yudai Kamisato is an award-winning Japanese theatre playwright and director born in Peru. He creates works with the theme of crossing borders based on the episodes he collects while visiting various places in South America and Asia. He won the first prize in the Toga Directors Competition (2006) and the prestigious Kishida Kunio Prize for Drama for The Story of Descending the Long Slopes of Valparaíso (2018). He stayed in Argentina 2016-2017 on an overseas research grant from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. From 2022 to 2024 he was a Saison Fellow II of the Saison Foundation.

Friday – Saturday, 28-29 June 2024

Venue: The Storey, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH

Friday 2:00 – 8:00pm & Saturday 12:00-6:00pm (timed entry)

Dear Potential Foreigners by Yudai Kamisato

European Premiere

A performance installation by the award-winning Japanese director and playwright Yudai Kamisato, who was born in Peru, focuses on the theme of movement, migrants and tourists through various stories collected from people in South America, Asia and locally where it is presented. When crossing borders what kind of people do we encounter? What kind of images do we see when we look at them? Following presentations in Japan, Brazil and Peru, Kamisato will work with local artists during a two-week residency to create a unique experience within the gallery space of The Storey building.