A ‘work-in-progress’ performance about war and memory in East Asia is lined up for a cultural exchange between a Japanese theatre company and Lancaster University researchers and residents.

Following three Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchanges over the past two years, Japanese theatre company Kamome Machine is collaborating with the University’s Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) and its Cultures Research Centre on the theme of Nanjing Massacre.

The Nanjing Massacre was a tragic moment in world history involving mass killings of Chinese citizens by Japanese soldiers in 1937, a few years before the Second World War witnessed by British and American journalists.

The Company comes to Lancaster for a two-week residence to explore the embodiment of this issue from an outsider perspective with Lancaster artists, students and researchers.

The work-in-progress performance entitled Nanjing Project Volume 5 is set to take place on May 8 at 3pm at the Jack Hylton Room in the Great Hall Complex at Lancaster University.

Kamome Machine company was founded in 2007 by Yuta Hagiwara with performer Honami Shimizu. Current member is also Shin Ito. Performances include Samuel Beckett-inspired Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, performed after Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011, Oregayo (2015-) which deals with Japanese constitution, and Telephone Theatre Series (2020-) in which the actors perform one-on-one performances for a single spectator over a telephone.

The work-in-progress performance will include a short presentation of the project so far, a 30-minute performance created in Lancaster and a Q&A session. The performance is based on archival material, Japanese manga and anime (cartoons and comics), poems and interviews with Chinese students, artists and experts.

Yuta Hagiwara, the company’s director, led a workshop on democracy in November 2023 at Lancaster University.

He said: “I am thrilled to be back in Lancaster and this time with my company. This is the theatre project that we have been working on for a very long time and it will have a premiere later this year. In Lancaster, I want to engage with many students, researchers and artists.”

Until 7 May 2025, the company is holding open rehearsals every afternoon.

Beri Juraic, a PhD Candidate in Theatre at Lancaster University and theatre maker said: “I have been following this project since the beginning and Kamome Machine’s theatre-making is quite unique. Lancastrians have a rare opportunity to witness and participate in their collaborative process of sharing thoughts through theatre.”

Previously, Beri Juraic and Yuta Hagiwara won the prestigious 2023 Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Prize of Japanese Theatre for an article on the first three phases on the project. Kamome Machine’s residency in Lancaster is co-organised by Dr Karen Jürs-Munby (Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Lancaster University) and Beri Juraic (PhD Candidate in Theatre, Lancaster University). The project is supported by Arts Council England, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and The Saison Foundation.

To sign up for the performance and open rehearsals please go to the sign-up form on Lancaster University’s website here.