Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Hinter den Kulissen

"Projekt G - Marburg" - eine Recherche über die Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Gebrüder Grimm und über das Glück.

Glücksmomente sind auf jeden Fall die Momente, in denen Ehito, Brian und Nao in Marburg ankommen und das Projekt G-Team nach der gemeinsamen Zeit in Japan wieder fast vollständig ist. 
Knapp zwei Wochen haben wir Zeit, um eine Performance zu entwickeln. Eine Performance, bei der wir vier auf der Bühne stehen werden und in der es um unsere Erlebnisse und Glücksmomente während des vergangenen Jahres und in unserer gemeinsamen Zeit in Japan gehen wird.


Also haben wir probiert, collagiert, diskutiert, geprobt, umgestellt, verworfen, neue Szenen entwickelt und wieder geprobt. Die Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm, die uns während des letzten Jahres, und in unserer Zeit in Japan im Workshop in Minamisoma und bei unserem Symposium über die internationale Grimm-Rezeption beschäftigt haben, werden in unserer Performance zu einem roten Faden, der die Szenen miteinander verbindet.


Und dann ist es soweit: Der Tag der Perfomance
r
 
Der 11. März 2011 – der Tag des Tsunamis, Erdbebens und der Atomkatastrophe, Tagebucheinträge über das Glück, Theater in verschiedenen Kulturen - There´s no buisness like showbuisness, Der Froschkönig, Bilder aus der Fukushimaregion ein Jahr und anderthalb Jahre nach dem Unglück, Texas, Tokio, Windhoek, Marburg, interkulturelle Kommunikation, die manchmal wie »Stille Post« funktioniert, Hans im Glück, Natasha, die nicht in Marburg sein kann, die aber immer in unseren Gedanken ist, Die ungleichen Kinder Evas, Ehitos und Naos Gefühl der Hoffnungslosigkeit nach der Katastrophe und die Frage, ob es ein Recht auf Glück gibt, wenn nicht alle Menschen zur gleichen Zeit glücklich sein können.
Das und Vieles mehr ist "Projekt G - Marburg". Es ist ein sehr persönlicher Theaterabend geworden. Ein Abend, der sehr unterschiedliche Erfahrungen, Erlebnisse und Weltsichten vereint.

Ehitos Premierengeschenk.
Nach der Vorstellung mit einer Kollegin aus Heidelberg
Das Projekt G-Team mit Gästen
Die Premierenfeier - auch ein Glücksmoment.

 Am nächsten Tag fahren wir zur Dokumenta:
 
...und besuchen das Grimm Museum
Es waren zwei sehr intensive und tolle Wochen. Domo Arrigato und bis bald

 


Thursday, September 13, 2012

We're Almost There!



  "Little town, its a quiet village . . .
Every day, like the one before,
 Little town, full of little people,

Waking up to saaaaaaaaay:"

GUTEN MORGEN!


Whoah! This time in Marburg has gone incredibly quickly. What a pleasure it is to be working in such a beautiful part of the world. The city itself is situated in a valley, with half the buildings clinging to the hillside, stairways wrapping up and around, narrow streets darting throughout. The picturesque views of the hills and trees, gorgeous architecture framing everything and the castle perched atop the highest hill. It seems like almost every building is at least a five hundred years old, and there are an abundance of cafes hidden in the nooks, crannies and winding staircases.

We are performing our piece in an historic lecture hall in the physics department of the Phillip's University. The room itself is not a theater, but is still extremely theatrical. There are two giant blackboards that span at least fifteen feet each. The best part is that they can be mechanically controlled to slide up or down the wall! We're doing our best to incorporate them into the piece.



The work itself has been intense: we've re-conceptualized the piece almost every day this week, and it seems like nothing is sacred: scenes are created and destroyed faster than the students guzzle beer at night. But what we've ended up with is an incredible collage of our experiences in Japan and with each other over the last eighteen months. I'm really proud of the work we are doing and so excited to share it with an audience tomorrow night!




We will be recording the performance (have been recording the rehearsals for the last few days), so if you cannot make it all the way to Marburg, no worries; there will be documentation! And I'm glad of it, because the piece is so personal, such a rich exploration of the incredible highs and lows we've gone through together, that I'm desperate to share it with a wider (non-German speaking) audience in the weeks to come.

Until then, we are waiting with baited breath for tomorrow. And by waiting of course, I mean frantically rehearsing all day, night and tomorrow morning.

SO EXCITING the audience will stomp and cheer,
SO DELIGHTING it will  run for fifty years!

Woohoo!

Brian



Monday, August 20, 2012

Nur noch zwei Wochen...

In zwei Wochen startet die zweite Arbeitsphase unseres interkontinentalen Projektes am Hessischen Landestheater in Marburg. In den letzten Wochen haben wir per Skype viel über die unterschiedlichen Performancebegriffe in Japan, Deutschland und den USA gesprochen. Es ist sehr spannend, da sich der japanische Performancebegriff stark von dem europäischen und amereikanischen unterscheidet.
Hier werden wir arbeiten und proben.
Da es in Japan kein Ausbildungssystem, keine Förderung für die freie Szene oder Schauspielproduktionen gibt, keine Probenräume und Aufführungsorte zur Verfügung stehen und auch kein Publikum vorhanden ist, verlagert sich die Theaterarbeit der freien Künstler oftmals in den Alltag und ins Private. Das Werk kann, anders als es bei uns in Europa und den USA üblich ist, auch ein Prozess sein, nicht immer steht eine Aufführung auf einer Bühne am Ende. So wird der Aufenthalt des Projekt G-Teams in Tokio im japanischen Sinne zu einer Aufenthaltsperformance. Doch wer ist das Publikum fragen Brian und ich. Nao erklärt uns, dass wir zunächst die Zuschauer waren, die sie und Ehito beobachtet haben, ihr Leben, ihre Kultur, ihren Alltag. Nach und nach sind wir dann auch zu Performern geworden, die in Tokio und Minamisoma agiert haben und dabei wiederrum von Nao und Ehito beobachtet wurden. Ein wichtiger Definitionsaspekt von Theater ist auch die Anwesenheit eines Regisseurs. So fällt die von Nao moderierte Podiumsdiskussion, unser Symposium über die internationale Rezeption der Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Gebrüder Grimm oder das Format des "Open Rooms" bei dem man die Wohnung von Ehito uns Nao besuchen, dort einen Kaffee trinken, ihre Bücher lesen, schlafen, sich unterhalten kann,... auch unter den Performancebegriff, da all dies in Anwesenheit von Nao - der Regisseurin - geschieht. Für Brian und mich ist dies eine neue Sichtweise auf Theater - eine mutige und leidenschaftliche Art und Weise Theater innerhalb eines Systems und einer Kultur zu machen, in der Theater eigentlich nicht vorgesehen ist.

Aktuell tragen wir unsere Ideen, Materialien und Eindrücke zusammen, von denen ausgehend wir ab dem 03.09.2012 in Marburg die Performance "Projekt G -Marburg" entwickeln werden. Die Aufführung von "Projekt G - Marburg" findet nur einmal, am 14. September 2012 um 19.30 Uhr, in einem Hörsaal der Philipps-Universität Marburg Renthof 5, Fachbereich Physik statt.
Wir werden Geschichten und Erfahrungen aus Japan und Deutschland live, in Bild- und Videodokumenten präsentieren, werden unsere Theaterbegriffe ausloten und im Anschluss an die Performance den theatrale Raum für den Austausch öffnen.

Marburg an der Lahn ist mit 80.000 Einwohnern ein bisschen kleiner als Tokio und sieht auch ein bisschen anders aus. Zur Einstimmung schon mal ein paar Impressionen...

Marburg an der Lahn

Märchen in Marburg - Der Schuh von Aschenputtel vor dem Marburger Schloß

In diesem Haus haben die Gebrüder Grimm während ihrer Studienzeit gewohnt.

Das Märchen "Vom Fischer und seiner Frau" auf der Lahn.

Weitere Informationen zu unserer Performance gibt es auf diesem Blog und unter: http://theater-marburg.com/tm/Spielplan/Stuecke/213


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture


I wanted to share a small excerpt of the incredible days we spent in Minamisoma, the town was hit very hard by the earthquake & tsunami and was also the closest to the nuclear reactor that exploded in Japan last year. Originally a population of 70,000 people, after the explosion it was down to 10,000 do to people fleeing the fallout. This year its back up to 40,000. We were leading a workshop and it really went in a tough direction I was not expecting.

It was a multigenerational workshop, high schoolers all the way up to seniors. We were of course working through interpreters, and after my past experiences with translation, you'd think I would have taken the language barrier more into account. I tell you though I felt Lost in Translation in more ways today than I ever had before.

But despite the participants trepidation, the workshop went quite well. After leading them through movement warm ups and physical theatre games, we had them read one of the Grimm Brother's fairy tales out loud as a group. We chose the Fisher and His Wife, one that we were reasonably sure none of them would be familiar with, and that dealt with the ideas of Wishing, material happiness, self restraint, all set in a seaside context. We figured: total win for a small Japanese seaside town.

WHOAH! Could not have been more surprised by the reaction. When we circled up at the end to talk about their reaction to the fairy tale . . . Big Surprise. They were all kind of angry. They asked us things like:

“Why would you have chosen this particular fairy tale?”,
or
“This has nothing to do with us, why are we reading this instead of something else?”,

and the tone of it was really angry. Or at least that's what it seemed like to me and my German colleague Annelie. See, it was the end of the day and so we had stopped translating. Our colleague, Ehito, was taking notes so that we could facilitate the conversation more quickly and then he would translate it all for us that night at the hotel. So we watched the discussion happen in Japanese, but had no idea what was actually being said. Very strange.

We left the workshop, headed to the hotel, ate dinner and finally assembled in the lobby (Ehito, Nao, Annelie & I, the workshop leaders) to talk about their reaction. Annelie, and I had the distinct feeling that the workshop had been a disaster. Like we started off great with theatre games, and as soon as we got to the content the whole thing blew up in our face.

Ehito and Nao explained to us however that that was not the case at all. Yes, the participants were a bit upset at our use of The Fisher & His Wife . . . but Ehito & Nao read that as us having hit a nerve; that the story was actually hitting really close to home, and that was why the folks in Minamisoma had such a strong reaction to it.

At this point, 18 months after the disaster, there had been absolutely no public dialogue about what went on. None. Basically there was an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by a reactor meltdown, followed by evacuation and a government coverup . . . and then a year of silence, followed by six months of painfully slow re-migration. There was also a huge rift in town between those who left and came back, and those who had stayed. So there was a lot going on under the surface that we were trying to get at.

While translating the day's discussion, Ehito told us that this story, The Fisher & His Wife, hit so close to home because it was about a seaside village where because of the people's actions (in this case the Fisher discovers a magical fish who grants wishes, and through his wife's folly brings about the destruction of their livelihood) they can no longer fish. In Minamisoma, because of the meltdown, none of the agriculture, or the fishing industry can be eaten for the next fifty years at least. Because the story is also about happiness, and wishes, we had asked them what they would wish for if they could encounter the fish. There were not many answers. The whole room had gotten really quiet at that point, which was sort of the beginning of this tension we felt. Then one woman, a schoolteacher in her mid-40's, said:

“I would wish that this was all a dream, that I could wake up and none of it would have happened. But its not of course.”

And that was the note we ended our first day on. Heavy.

So we re-strategized for the next day's workshop, looking for a way to bring Fisher and His Wife to life in small performance groups. We broke the piece up and after a few hours of more ensemble/theatre games, spent the rest of the afternoon working out site-specific performances of each of the four pieces of the story. We then went to each location and filmed the groups performing their pieces. It was a big success.

The workshop was over at the end of the second day, but we were scheduled to have a community discussion the third night. We spent the third day traveling around Minamisoma viewing the devastation from the Tsunami and the earthquake, as well as the meltdown. We went to a nursing home that had been completely wiped out by the tsunami. They had had only 30 minutes notice, and many people had died. It really reminded me of a concentration camp, the level of destruction and misery. It was tough. We also went through a smaller town that had been completely evacuated because of radiation levels for over a year. Just since April were the inhabitants allowed to go back during the daytime and collect their valuables. But seriously it was a ghost town. The eeriest part was that someone had set up a loudspeaker hooked up to a stereo to blast traditional Japanese folk music through the empty town. It was apparently an attempt to keep it cheerful in this abandoned place, but really only added to the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

On the lighter side though, we did meet this adorable fellow:
Q-chan, the dog. He was accompanying his master, Mr. Omagari, who was a pharmacist that had lived in this area for many years. He and his wife were there collecting their things. We spoke with them and they invited us into their house, showed us their family's ancestral samurai weapons, calligraphy from famous poets and other treasures. Their generosity and resilience was a welcome reprieve from the oppressive ghost-town environment.

That night we geared up for the community discussion, in an old Sake factory converted into an art space.The crowd was small, about fifteen; again ranging in age from 15 to 77. About half had been participants at the workshop. We spent most of the first hour then talking about theatre, including a lively discussion about Shakespeare in contemporary performance, the German state theatre system, and the different levels of professional theatre in each of our countries.

We took a small break an hour in, and the four of us were strategizing about how to bring the conversation back to the situation in Minamisoma. Mrs. Wakamatsu, the director of the Minamisoma International Association that had invited us there, was adamant that the discussion should address the elephant in the room: namely that no one in Minamisoma was talking about the enormous problems they were all facing. A lot of this has to do with Japanese culture, which is very closed, very private and extremely polite. This means that often big-picture dramatic events are not discussed openly in public, rather they are spoken about in private with friends and loved ones.
So we decided to lead off with a provocative question. When everyone had gotten tea/coffee and cookies and sat back down, I asked (through Ehito, translating of course) what they thought of a bunch of us Westerners, artists, coming to Minamisoma to put on a theatre workshop. How did they feel about that?

It was pretty silent for a moment, then Kuma, one of the workshop participants, raised his hand and said:

“I think its pretty stupid.”

 He went on to explain that it doesn't really have a purpose and he's not sure what we were up to. Then he started speaking about his own experience as someone who was not from Minamisoma but moved there after the catastrophe in order to make a difference in the lives of the people there. 

Somehow this beginning, allowing the Japanese people to be offended and tell us that, gave everyone in the room permission to speak about their experience. Ehito & Nao later said it probably had to do with the fact that we were foreigners, and don't understand the language/culture, therefore we get let off the hook and they don't have to be so polite around us, they feel they can speak their minds. After Kuma spoke about his own experience, it was as if the floodgates opened, and over the next two hours every single individual in the room spoke for 5-20 minutes about their experience of the earthquake, the tsunami, the nuclear meltdown, and the 18 months since all of it had happened.

Now the strangest part for Annelie and I was that we could not understand any of the words being spoken. We had agreed as a team earlier that Ehito would simply take notes throughout the conversation, so as not to impede it. We had found in the previous days that the act of translation into/out of Japanese was so laborious that it did not really make sense to do it simultaneously. So there we were for two hours, listening to these people pour their hearts out, and not being able to understand any of it. But we were able to understand the body language in the room, and to see the affect that certain individuals' stories had on everyone present.

The stories ranged from the serendipitous to the horrific. From a fifteen year old girl feeling excited and a bit guilty about the fact that the catastrophe allowed her to get into a better school than she ever would have been able to beforehand, to a middle-aged man who was in charge of waste management and ended up having to dispose of the bodies in the weeks and months after the disaster.

The stories were many and varied. All of them extremely personal and very raw. No one in attendance had told talked about any of these things with anyone besides their family. It was an extremely powerful evening and it culminated with a short poetry reading. Jotaro Wakamatsu, (Mrs. Wakamatsu's husband) was a local poet who had been writing about atomic catastrophes in Fukushima and around the world for over thirty years. His poems about the multiple critical events at the reactors there in Fukushima had been published for decades, as recently as 2008. One book of his poems was published last year in a dual-language Japanese/English version, translated by an American poet who lives in Japan. At the end of our community discussion, Jotaro read one of his poems in Japanese, and I was asked to read it in English, to celebrate the multicultural spirit of the event.

Once the poems had been read and the event was breaking up, Kuma invited us all back to his place to have dinner, drinks and relax together. It was a much-needed gathering: informal and relaxing. It occurred to me that no matter where one is on this earth, there are some things that are universal. One of those, I believe, is theatre culture. It felt for all the world like a bunch of actors hanging out after a performance, drinking beer and watching goofy old recordings of films they had been a part of. Even though we each pursue theatre in very different ways, some of us professionally, some as a hobby, most somewhere in between, the love of performing and of the community that is created through performing was common to us all.

Our three days in Minamisoma were unforgettable. I feel like I've barely caught a fraction of the impressions and experiences I received there in these five pages. But I hope that it gives some indication of the huge impact this experience had on me and that it gives a better picture of what life is like for those who are still living with the consequences of these disasters, both natural and man-made.








Sunday, July 29, 2012

Demonstrations!

Creative Slogans, Signs, and Posters were in abundance . . .

In Tokyo there were anti-nuclear power demonstrations in the week leading up to the reactivation of two nuclear reactors on July 2nd. Demonstrations are not at all common in Japan, both due to the reserved nature of the Japanese people, as well as the history of demonstrations in the 60's that turned violent, and subsequently turned the Japanese off to the idea. But we had heard that the movement was gaining traction and it was totally peaceful. So we decided to go on Friday June 29th, the last protest before the reactors were to be reactivated, and the day before we were heading to Fukushima, where one of the actors had gone critical the year before and was to be turned back on. Needless to say we had more than one reason to protest.



The turnout was unbelievable; it was the biggest protest they had had in decades. The police officially said there were 20,000 protestors, but the organizers said it was well over 100,000. I've been in a number of large crowd situations, including demonstrations before, and I promise you there were more than 100,000 there. The government has been doing everything it can to keep the protests under wraps. In fact the international media barely even covered the protest on 6/29. I'm happy to report however that the movement has continued, and gained momentum. Today on 7/29, the protestors surrounded the parliament building with a human chain.



 Check out the article here:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/anti-nuclear-protesters-surround-japanese-parliament-1.896790





We had tickets to the theater that evening, and had only intended to stop by for a half hour on our way there. After fifteen minutes at the demonstration, Ehito ran up to us and said, effectively: "Forget the theater! We're staying here!" And so we did. It was certainly one of the best decisions we made in Tokyo. Here are some impressions from that night, one that we will not soon forget:




Friday, July 13, 2012

南相馬ワークショップ(2)

寺尾です。
昨日ナターシャが帰国し、無事に日本での全日程終了しました。

前回に引き続き、南相馬でのワークショップについてご紹介します。

二日目は、周囲の空間や他の参加者との関係を、身体を使って感じるメニューをいくつか行った後に、三つのグループに分かれてグリムのメルヒェン『漁師とその妻』の一場面を、演劇的に表現してみました。
最後には一時間ほどディスカッションの時間を設けました。
特に高校生の皆さんには、最後の場面作りがとても好評でした。
短い時間ではありましたが、何か少しでもヒントになってくれれば嬉しいです。

イス取りゲーム的な


二人一組で歩く


全員で歩く


各グループ風景


同上


お疲れさまでした

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

南相馬でのワークショップ(1)

寺尾です。アネリー、ブライアンの順で帰国し、ナターシャもいよいよ明日出発します。
長きにわたったプロジェクトG日本編も、まもなく終了となります。

もちろんプロジェクト自体は、9月のマールブルク、そして(多分)来年のアメリカ、ナミビアへと続いていきます。

さて、今回の滞在の大きなプログラムとして、福島県南相馬市での演劇ワークショップが挙げられます。寺尾、坂田、アネリー、ブライアンの4名が、15名前後の参加者と一緒に過ごした時間は、本当に実り多く、豊かなものでした。
もちろん楽しいばかりでなく、時には南相馬市の皆さんの、非常に辛く、胸が締め付けられるような体験についてお話を伺ったりもしました。

それら全てが、私達にとってかけがえのない体験になりました。
改めてご協力頂いた皆さんにお礼を申し上げたいと思います。

少しだけ、ワークショップの模様をお伝えしたいと思います。

6月30日(土)13時~17時
会場:南相馬市文化会館ゆめはっと多目的ホール

会場のポスター


南相馬市国際交流協会の若松さんと


ワークショップはみんなで寝転がることから






幅広い年代の参加者


ワークショップの素材として使う
グリム童話についてのディスカッション

同上


グリム童話『漁師とその妻』の一風景


同上


二日目についてはまた次の記事で。