The following includes reviews of various Fringe shows which were promoted as part of the 'Japan Experience' at the Edinburgh Festival. This year most of the events were at a small venue, the Garage, near the Traverse theatre.
Shakti
"Featuring live body
painting by Mieko Nishimura on Shakti's curvaceous body."
The Pillow Book is a classic Japanese guide to the pleasures of the
body, written around the 12th century AD by Sei Shonagon.
In this performance inspired by the Pillow Book, Shakti, well-known for
her erotic dance performances, appears in flowing costume and soon
disrobes to have her body painted on stage by artist Mieko Nishimura. A
supporting dancer opens the show and is also the first to bare her back
and have it painted - a curiously erotic act. The painting, conducted at
lightning speed, covers Shakti's body with brightly coloured lines and
patterns, and flowers. For a considerable part of the performance, Shakti
dances clad only in paint.
It's an impressive performance in which Shakti once again embodies
powerful female sexuality.
Robed, Shakti concludes the show by addressing the audience and
explaining that Sei Shonagon, the original author of the Pillow Book, was
a pioneer of self-expression in what was a rigid and repressive era. ***
Website
Yumiko Izuta
"Relief" was
first shown in the 2000 Contemporary Dance Festival in Tokyo. It brings
the fragments of ... Yumiko's mother's life into relief by using the
fingers and hands that express the beauty, delicate, strength and
sharpness." In 1998, Yumiko Izuta suffered severe back
pain while dancing. Since then she has concentrated on less physical dance
using her arms, hands and fingers. The dance "Relief" was
inspired by memories of Izuta's mother. The piece opens with Izuta seated,
wearing a beautiful pale satin dress. Initially she moves only her fingers
but then she gets up and performs slow, often still dance.
One shouldn't expect too much leaping about in Japanese contemporary
dance, and this doesn't clash with that expectation. A quiet but
interesting dance piece, and the finger movements are astonishing! ***
by: Treaders in the Snow (Mana Hashimoto and Takako Matsuda.)
The company is based in New York. "Mana
Hashimoto lost her eyesight 2 years ago. But that did not stop her from
continuing her dance."
On stage, Hashimoto is accompanied by another dancer, Matsuda.
They performed Uncertain Memories program A,, consisting of Sangetsuki
(= Mountain Moon-note), inspired by a story about a man who meets his
friend, who is turning into a tiger, followed by the part-spoken Little
Orange Screen - Requiem for the Broken Mirror and Unforgettable
Moment of Being. "Uncertain Memories -
seeing, feeling, touching things - it's unexplainable in words what the
mind feels. using initial moments, sounds and space, I pursue my emotions."
(Mana).
The dances are slow, quiet pieces. I enjoyed them. ***
A devised piece on 'comfort women' by La Lange Vivante.
A play which explores the dark underworld of military prostitutes/
sexual slaves. .. ScarletZone is the bloody zone
between life and death, sexual pleasure and agony, sanity and insanity
where female bodies are treated as the property of the nation and sexual
attack is a weapon and comfort of war." The backbone of this
project is its capability to defy the evil connection of war-media-sex and
to serve as a requiem for the victims." "This is an intense
production combining visual and verbal elements in an imaginative way to
register a protest at many forms of exploitation." I found this a
powerful and moving piece, full of examples of inhumanity and suffering.
One character, who misses her mother, begins her first menstruation,
another has been conscripted from college. Highly recommended. ****
Website
Katsura Kan and the Saltinbanques.
"Butoh, dance of darkness, in one of its most
original forms."
"Kan has taught and performed in various south-east Asian countries.
His work has been highly acclaimed by classicists as well as the
modernists. .. Curious Fish is a satirical humorous dark piece created for
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe."
A very strange piece which soon had the audience gasping in
amazement as the male dancers (prone) were struck by the famale dancers,
causing them to quiver in shock. In the next movement the male dancers
flop about on the floor like landed fish. There is a dance for four male
dancers in red loincloths, with their backs to the audience. There's a
part where the men show gaping round mouths, with lots of red stained
teeth. One has a particularly round mouth with jagged uneven teeth,
looking like something from some surreal nightmare. There is a finale
where the dancers stand perfectly still, mouths open while a song from an
American musical plays. Utterly strange and wonderful. Must be seen! *****
"Three girls explore their bodies and minds to awaken their sexual awareness. Images of the pyramid and lotus heighten their visions and energies making their motions flow and culminate into a point of ecstasy".
Artistic director: Kenji Kawarasaki. production manager Yoshifumi Seo.
Tokyo Triangle: Yoko Tomabechi, Tomomi Morimoto, Hiromi Sekine (also in
Company East (see below). The three girls appear separately in colour
matched costumes of red, blue, green, with Japanese umbrellas and each
does a dance. Garments are shed, or changed, till clad only in G-strings
they exchange rather hasty erotic embraces. Resuming part of their
costumes they flirt with the front row of the audience. For the finale
they resume the original costumes with umbrellas.
The dancing is quite good and the costumes are colourful. The show does
seem to express the espoused Tantric ideas, though the near-nudity is
rather startling to a Western audience. And the three girls appear to be
enjoying themselves (if they weren't it was very good acting). I note that the character painted on the faces of the three dancers appears to be yume (dream).
Interesting. ***
Website
"Beautiful silky skinned Japanese boys will
entertain you with song, dance and steamy scenes. The wild side of Japan
as you never saw it. Hot and sexy! Women also welcome! Sell-out in Japan.
Nudity!"
Several of the J-Boys are also part of Company East.
A flyer like that ought to keep out anyone who didn't want to be there...
The five J-boys, generally pretty, and as camp as a row of tents, had
attractive costumes and did some okay dancing. This was supposed to be
about being a Samurai. The climactic (oo-er) point of the show had them
disrobing and doing things that were about as suggestive as they could be
without showing their equipment or inviting a police raid. Those naughty
J-Boys also minced around the seating inviting members of the audience to
finger under their jockstraps.
Your guest reviewer didn't so much mind the show which looked like gay
heaven (it would probably raise eyebrows even in Japan) but was
disconcerted by the all-male audience, half of whom looked like a lot of
sad old queens and he left quickly at the end having gathered the
materials for this review. (Adrian B) ***
Website
Company East - Jin Hiroshi
A fusion of traditional Noh drama, western theatre, and jazz dance. Jin
Hiroshi, known for his female impersonations, plays Medea.
Artistic director: Kenji Kawarasaki. Cast: Hiroshi Jin, Sho Tono, Akira
Morita, Yama Takigawa, Miyuki Takahara, Yoko Tomobechi, Tomomi Morimoto,
Hiromi Sekine. Production mamager: Yoshifumi Seo.
The costumes are exotic and resemble those of Noh drama. Medea is a tall,
white-faced figure in elaborate robes and a head-dress on which are sharp
red implements. There are battles and stabbings. Medea comforts her
children, who are appealing in their white robes, but later strangles
them.
I found this to be a visually exciting and powerful production. The music
and the shouts of the actors are very loud, reflecting their inner
turmoil. Perhaps to defuse the intensity of the play, at the end the
actors reveal themselves and speak to the audience as themselves.
Highly recommended. *****
Website
This was a two person (mostly solo) dance performance using Butoh
technique and, according to the programme, also Northern
Thai martial arts such as Fon Joeng, Tob Ma Pab and Sword Dance.
Apparently the theme of the piece was to present the Buddhist philosophy
of the Three Characteristics of Phenomena (Impermanent, Suffering,
Emptiness) and the belief of reincarnation.
The dance looked interesting and I think I spotted the martial arts
element, but not having had a good look at the preview notes immediaterly
beforehand, I was confused by the title into thinking that this was more
to do with the Greek legend (in which the Gorgon is so horrible that
anyone seeing her is turned to stone) than seemed actually to be the case.
This commences with the dancer perched on a pair of parallel bars,
wearing a red coat. She drops from the bars and treads a path around the
centre of the stage, before dropping the coat to reveal a modern dance
costume. She then returns to the bars to perform some movements that
clearly require considerable strength and acrobatic ability.
In an extended sequence, she changes into a classical dance costume and
applies makeup. However as the putting on of the shoes (ten pieces of
sticking plaster for the toes!) makes clear this is not to be a classical
dance, but an ironic commentary. Evidently classical ballet is not for Aki
any more!
An enjoyable and accessible piece that exceeded my expectations. ****
A one woman show by Hawaiian-born Kati Kuroda, aided by a musician and
stage attendant. Kuroda plays all the parts, including the young princess,
the loyal retainer, three Lords, and a young prince. The play is recently
written but is based on an 11th century legend and set around Kyoto.
This is a bravura performance: Kuroda, dressed in Japanese costume, plays
all the parts, from breathless young princess, to gruff loyal retainer, to
lord, to effeminate prince Kai, with equal conviction and authority. From
time to time the black-clad attendant wipes her brow or hands her a
wrapped sword or other props.
Sakura is taken to court by Lord Mitsuhide, who she secretly loves.
Dressed as a young man, Sakura is sent to weaken Lord Rozaemon, in a court
political intrigue. She meets Prince Kai. It ends tragically.
Highly recommeded. *****
A major dance drama brought to Edinburgh by Kaoruco, a leading
Japanese choreographer. The work is based on the true story of a fugitive
warrior and his poet sister. The warrior, an adherent of the warrior code
of Bushido, kills himself after his victory over his pursuers, much to the
chagrin of his more liberal-minded sister. Apparently the warrior and his
sister are each played by two performers, representing their real selves
and their "other" more spiritual selves. The show ends with a
dance by Kauruko herself, evidently showing emotions being carried in a
wind to the corners of the universe, an ancient Japanese belief.
The costuming alternates ancient costume and modern street styles, and
the music reflects this, as do the movements of the dancers. The dancing
is impressive. However, despite the program notes, I was confused for much
of the time about the identity of the characters on stage.
I saw the second Edinburgh performance of the show (17 August), and
despite an almost unprecedented publicity campaign for a fringe show, with
a flyer dropping out of my copy of the Scotsman, and posters on the backs
of buses, the audience in the sizeable Gateway Theatre was very sparse.
Hopefully audience numbers increased after the enthusiastic full-page
review in the Scotsman festival supplement.
Shoko Ito
This show embodied the do-it-yourself spirit of the Fringe more than
most. Shoko Ito is a talented and enthusiastic actress who wrote the show
herself and plays all the parts. The story is about Oda Nobunaga (a
ruthless medaeval warlord whose name is well known to all Japanese) who
when about to die seals a contract with a minor god to have himself
transferred into the future. He soon meets a young woman who may be a
reincarnation of someone he knew, and sets about becoming, with her
guidance, not a warlord but the modern equivalent - the president of a
business empire.
While the play is rather like something from a Japanese manga
(comic book) it's certainly very funny, and Ito plays with great energy.
Ito prefaces and concludes the show by talking about the suicide of her
sister. It seems that this really happened and isn't just a part of the
show. Recommended. ***