AMI THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS
AMI THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS
A-MI-NA-DA-BU
A novel "L'Arret de mort" written by Maurice Blanchot tells a story about the woman who came back to life agein for called by a man, and made an exchange with the man, and finally died again. However, after I finished reading it, I felt both awful desolation, and ununderstandable quiet relief that trancend finiteness of human beings. Because of this strangeness I made this quie difficult challenge of making play from this novel.
-Yojiro Okamura Director,Playwright,Actor
AMI
Founded in 1994 by actor-director Okamura Yojiro, the company devises contemporary verse drama, by paradoxically utilizing the improvisational potential as well as the non-naturalistic physicality and style of traditional noh theatre. Furthermore the Ami Theatre explores the possibilities of making a new contemporary mask drama.In constructing a high-tension centripetal kind of staging, Ami aims to stir the audience’s unconscious so that a dynamic and primordial drama may flower in its imaginary.
The avant garde and the traditional collide and converge in Ami’s performance; yet at the same time, the Ami Theatre enjoys a reputation of being the closest to authentic noh theatre.
The “dynamic and primordial stage” mentioned above refers to Okamura’s concept of the “disappearing stage”. For further information, refer to the Ami Theatre manifesto that explains the company’s acting theory.
SHOW INFO
@THEATER TOKYO BABYLON
7-26-19 Toshima Kita-ku Tokyo
03-3827-5482(12:00-20:00)
PRICE
Adv. ¥3000 / Door. ¥3500
DATES
26 May 2017 19:00
27 May 2017 14:00/19:00
28 May 2017 14:00
Booking through until 25 May 2017
Ticket: email@tokyobabylon.org
CAST
Kazuko Shimazu
Yojiro Okamura
Hisa Uzawa(Noh actress)
CREATIVE
Written & Directed by Yojiro Okamura
A-MI-NA-DA-BU
Hisa Uzawa
Kanze Noh actress Shite-kata(Intangible Cultural Property)
Born 1949 as a daughter of Masashi Kanze, a descendent of Kan’ami and Zeami who founded the Noh movement in the 14th century. Trained by her father Masashi Kanze, Hisao Kanze and Tetsunojo Kanze. With her family one of Japanese five main Noh schools. She made her Noh stage debut at the age of three. She is said to be the pioneer of Noh actress, has a big influence on young- generation-Noh actresses. She is a member of “Tessenkai Theater”. “Tessenkai Theater” is one of Japanese most acclaimed ensembles of the traditional Noh theater. She attended Tokyo University of Arts. Won Ataka Prize. Won Kawasaki cultural prize. She is the head of “Uzawa-Hisa-no-kai”(Noh theater group)
Yojiro Okamura
Playwright,Director,Actor
Through a five-year physical training on the “recovery of the body” at the Takeuchi Toshiharu Theatre Institute, Okamura Yojiro discovered for himself the origin of theatrical creation. He then trained with the renowned noh actor Kanze Hideo for eight years. In this way, Okamura enjoys an unusual background for a practitioner engaging in contemporary theatre. In addition, he is the owner-manager of the Tokyo Babylon Theatre complex, which is dedicated to the production of experimental performance arts such as butoh, contemporary dance, and theatre.
Kazuko Shimazu
President of AMI Theater Company,Actress
2010 July “A Blue Cleanser Box: From the Siberian Sky”
2012 Janualy “A Cry from the Wilderness”
2012 April “The Boy:the Record of a Schizophrenic’s Soul”
2012 November “A Quiet Decline”
2013 November Four Hundredth Anniversary of Japan-British Relations
“Rains in Neandertal Forest”
MANIFESTO: The Disappearing Stage
Theatre will remain dead forever unless script writers, directors, and actors stop thinking of the stage as a means of personal expression and achievement. We must recover the essential relations between the audience and the stage.
Theatre used to be part of religious ritual. The voices of the gods were “heard” on stage and divine absence could also be felt. Such presence and absence were beyond human words. Stage performance even today is not under the control of conscious human activity. In the encounter of the human mind with performance, an explosion of psychic energy can arise, filling the time-space of the stage. The stage disappears in the face of what it calls forth from the unconscious.
Today, we theatre practitioners are faced by the absence of even the sense of divine absence. To be involved in the creation of that which transcends language and which is no longer religious nor sacred, we must withdraw with the art work to a distant and unnamed place. We touch profundity at this very site, where there is no absolute truth, yet we must suffer the danger of encountering presence. This is the only way to revive the performing arts.