Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange November 2023

TADASHI UCHINO
PROFESSOR (GAKUSHUIN WOMEN'S COLLEGE, TOKYO)
Uchino Tadashi received his MA in American Literature (1984) and Ph.D. in Performance Studies (2002), both from the University of Tokyo. He was a professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992-2017) and received the title of professor emeritus at the U. of Tokyo (2019). He is currently a professor at the Department of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Gakushuin Women’s College. His publication includes The Melodramatic Revenge (1996), From Melodrama to Performance (2001), Crucible Bodies (2009) and The Location of J Theatre (2016). Uchino has served in many Japanese academic societies and is currently a contributing editor for TDR (Cambridge UP).

YUTA HAGIWARA
THEATRE DIRECTOR (TOKYO)
A theatre director and the leader of Kamome Machine company based in Tokyo. He started working in theatre while a student at Waseda University. He won the 13th Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Award and the Toga Engeki Jin Konkūru Award in 2016; Directing credits include Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, performed after Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and Telephone Theatre Series in which the actors perform one-on-one performances for a single spectator over a telephone. In 2018 he participated in Theatertreffen International Forum in Berlin. He is a Saison Fellow 1 for 2022-23.

LOUISE ANN WILSON
SCENOGRAPHER, THEATRE-MAKER, RESEARCHER (LANCASTER, UK)
Dr Louise Ann Wilson is a scenographer, performance-maker and researcher who creates site-specific walking-performances and installations in rural landscapes that give-a-voice to challenging life-events – with transformative and therapeutic outcomes. Her work has addressed terminal illness and bereavement, in/fertility and childlessness-by circumstance, (im)mobility and the effects of ageing, and the impact of change – personal and topographical. She is currently developing a body of interdisciplinary art/medical works that emplace experiences of hysterectomy surgery, surgical menopause, and surgery for breast cancer. Her monography entitled Sites of Transformation: Applied and Socially Engaged Scenography in Rural Landscapes (2022) was published by Bloomsbury Methuen and shortlisted for the Prague Quadrennial Best Book Award 2023.

KAREN JÜRS-MUNBY
SENIOR LECTURER IN THEATRE (LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, UK)
Dr Karen Jürs-Munby received her MA in American Studies from the University of Kansas (1986) and PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota (2000). She is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University. She translated and wrote a critical introduction for Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre (2006). Other publications include Postdramatic Theatre and the Political (2013), coedited with Jerome Carroll and Steve Giles, and the special issue Jelinek in the Arena (Austrian Studies 22, 2014), coedited with Allyson Fiddler. She is currently completing a monograph on the innovative postdramatic stagings of Elfriede Jelinek’s theatre texts by major German directors. Jelinek in Practice: German Directors’ Theatre, Politics and Aesthetics will be published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.

BERI JURAIC
PHD CANDIDATE IN THEATRE (LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, UK)
Beri Juraic is a PhD Candidate in Theatre Studies at the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Kansai University in Osaka, Japan in the autumn of 2022 and holds an MA in Japanese Studies (Distinction) from SOAS, University of London. His research interests concern post-war and contemporary Japanese theatre and performance, migration and theatre, postdramatic theatre, multilingual theatre and rehearsal methods. He has published in Asian Theatre Journal and Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques. Previously, he worked as a theatre producer on over sixty productions and a festival programmer in the UK and abroad.

RICHARD TALBOT
SENIOR LECTURER IN PERFORMANCE (UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD, UK)
Dr Richard Talbot is a performer and Senior Lecturer in Performance at the University of Salford, Manchester, where he currently researches comedy as it relates to memory, ageing and language. He leads the only degree in Comedy Writing and Performance in the UK. He has performed and published articles on international theatre companies, and he produces participatory theatre in public spaces and social care settings for local authorities and social agencies. He has created award-winning immersive theatre events for heritage sites and museums, most recently for an exhibition and performances in Japan combining puppetry, clowning and digital performance, funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. He has published articles and websites on Performance Art and Comedy (Comedy Studies 2023) and has written on Digital Performance. He was on the Jury at the International Festival of Liberal Theatre in Jordan in June 2023.

ANDREW QUICK
PROFESSOR (LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, UK, CO-FOUNDER IMITATING THE DOG COMPANY UK)
Professor Andrew Quick is a founder member of imitating the dog. Andrew leads on writing for the company and has directed a number of productions. Andrew also teaches at Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts (LICA) at Lancaster University and has published widely on contemporary art practices.