JAPAN-BRITAIN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE EXCHANGE 14-29 June 2024

Theme: Encounters and Mis-deliveries
Lancaster, Salford, London

In this second edition of Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange, we engage with the theme of encounters and mis-deliveries in theatre. What happens when we encounter the Other in theatre? We explore the dramaturgical processes that question the notion of migrants versus tourists and crossing borders. 

Misunderstandings, misinterpretations, mistranslations and mis-deliveries are commonplace in performances. What kind of mis-deliveries and misunderstandings arise when we travel through theatre? How is foreign represented in theatre? What are the linguistic and political implications?

We have invited the award-winning Japanese playwright and director Yudai Kamisato who was born in Peru. His works have been presented at prestigious international theatre festivals such as Festival d’Automne in Paris, Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brussels and Sydney Festival among others. Following performances in Brazil, Japan and Peru, we bring the European premiere of his latest work, a performance installation entitled Dear Potential Foreigners. In his notes, Kamisato writes:  ‘Somewhere along the way, I came to think that I would always want to be a foreigner. I began to think that if I were a foreigner, I wouldn't have to worry about details, and it wouldn't matter if I could speak the language or not, it would be easy. ‘Easy’ means a tourist temporarily staying in a foreign country. The ease of being a tourist in a place affirms the uncertainty of one's identity. A tourist may not need to know the local language or even the local politics. But can tourists really remain carefree and easy? What is the difference between migrants and tourists? What happens to the tourists in the lands of their departure, in the lands where they have been? Such questions arise constantly.’

During a two-week residency, Kamisato will work with a local performer and a designer on the theme of ‘movement’, ‘migrants’ and tourist’ culminating in a two-day performance installation at The Storey in Lancaster. We are also organising a series of encounters with researchers, academics, artists, and students through workshops in Manchester and London.

On 14 June, one of the leading experts on contemporary Japanese performance, Dr Kyoko Iwaki from the University of Antwerp will be giving a talk on the works of another award-winning director Satoko Ichihara and her production Madama Butterfly that toured around Europe in the last two years.  Iwaki says: ‘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.’ Her talk will be followed by a roundtable ‘Encounters and Mis-deliveries’. She will be joined by British researchers and Yudai Kamisato who will be giving a presentation about his performance installation.

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

This project is organised through Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) Cultures Research Centre. It is organised by Beri Juraic, PhD Candidate in Theatre Studies (Lancaster University) with support from Dr Richard Talbot, Senior Lecturer in Performance (University of Salford). Additional support by Dr Karen Jürs-Munby, Senior Lecturer in Theatre (Lancaster University).Yudai Kamisato’s ‘Dear Potential Foreigners’ is presented in collaboration with comedian Daphna Baram, and visual designer Mark (Chengyi) Zhou. 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.

SCHEDULE

Friday, 14 June 2024

Venue: Lancaster University, Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre

10:00 – 10:10am Welcome

10:10 -11:30am Talk 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         Limited to 10 places

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

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.