Program

“Mukashi, Mukashi” is a new work co-produced by Toronto’s CORPUS company and Osaka’s Kio company. The collaboration between CORPUS and Kio goes back many years. Kio has facilitated CORPUS’ tours throughout Japan with its signature pieces (Les moutons, A Flock of Flyers and Camping Royale) since 2010. Four years ago, the two companies decided to join forces and create a new work together.

Directed and written by CORPUS’ artistic director David Danzon, “Mukashi, Mukashi” explores two iconic characters of Western and Japanese folklore: The Wolf and the Crane. The wolf is a central figure in Western fairy tales with deep roots in western collective consciousness. Often portrayed as a dark figure, dangerous and not to be trusted, the wolf is mostly used to scare children from disobeying their parents or venturing alone outside the home. Its counterpart in the east is the crane. In contrast to the wolf, the crane symbolizes good fortune, loyalty and longevity. It also carries deep roots in Japanese folklore.

The meeting of the two animals in this work is an excuse to explore two contrasting cultures. The work uses traditional and contemporary Japanese art forms mixed with old and newer Western practices to offer new cultural perspectives, in form and in content.

As Mukashi, Mukashi will be presented here in Japan then in Canada, my aim is to introduce the poetic and intriguing world of Japanese folk tales to Canadian audiences, and the magical world of western fairytales to a Japanese audience, all with a CORPUS twist, fused with a cross-cultural sensibility.

This work was created with the cast. I would like to thank them for their hard work and creative input. The design and supporting team also contributed greatly to the artistic content and I thank them as well for their commitment and talent. Finally, a warm thank you to Kio for embarking on this creative journey with open arms, and for the Toyooka Theater festival for presenting this new work.

I hope you enjoy the show.

David Danzon
CORPUS artistic director and director of “Mukashi, Mukashi”

CORPUS (CANADA)
Co-founded by Sylvie Bouchard and artistic director David Danzon, CORPUS is known for its precise and surrealist humour that combines movement with theatrical imagery. Created in 1997, CORPUS now has 15 pieces in its repertoire and has presented over 2500 performances at venues and events across Canada and around the world in 34 countries on five continents. CORPUS is particularly acclaimed in Japan where the company has performed annually since 2008. In 2022, CORPUS is proudly celebrating its 25th anniversary.

KIO (JAPAN)
Founded in 1971. Kohey Nakadachi is its general artistic director.
For many years, KIO had been organized “TACT/FEST Osaka International Arts Festival for Kids” as an international exchange project, and has produced many international co-productions. KIO has collaborated with the Osaka Shion Wind Orchestra on productions such as "ANEMOS- Calling for my wind," "Faust's Lover," "Immersive Theater Line 1 Osaka Version," and "Orchestra Theater Line 1” KIO has also created disaster prevention theater programs, "The Challenge from Dr. Disaster Prevention" in partnership with NPO Plus Arts, and adapted the English learning app "Magna and the Mysterious Girl" into a musical. We continue to create theaters for all generations, from children to adults, and that deepens dialogue among diverse generations.

“I want to save people…Is that embarrassing?”
A human drama about people trying to overcome reality with fiction.
The 66th Kunio Kishida Drama Award-winning work, a majestic re-performance!

Even if kindness is said to be a weakness, even if prejudice and discrimination push us into the shadows and make us feel that we are not the leading role in this society, someone somewhere, for example, a character in a story, can honestly say, I want to see him sticking to kindness and trying to be the main character in his own life. Because what is there is a protest against the coldness and heartlessness of this world, a rejection of setbacks, and an unwavering acceptance and release of love. I want to see the reality that can only be seen through the tunnel of fantasy.

Written and Director by Suguru Yamamoto

Theater Collective HANCHU-YUEI
Written and Director by Suguru Yamamoto
Playwright and Director. Theater Collective HANCHU-YUEI representative. Born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1987.
Using movies, literature, music, art, etc. that he has absorbed since childhood as an artistic background, he constructs a theatrical world that vividly reflects the modern information society in which ethics are changing at an accelerating pace.
He has a wide repertoire, including ``The Theater on the Other Side,'' which is also a place of creation online, ``Series Adult and Child,'' which can be enjoyed with children, and workshops for youth and welfare facilities.
He has also performed in Asian countries and North America, internationally co- Production Manager, and provided plays, and is expanding his activities overseas.
Studying in New York from September 2019 to February 2020 as an ACC2018 grantee artist.
Received Best Script Award and Best Film Award at Bangkok Theater Festival 2014 for Little Girl X.
Received the 66th Kishida Kunio Drama Award for BANANA FLOWER CAN BE EATEN.
Fellow The Saison Foundation.

This new space sci-fi comedy is brought to you by Oriza Hirata and Laurent Gutmann—the duo that triumphed in France with The Songs of Farewell—in collaboration with students from Japan and France.The year is 3023, and humans, who have scattered across the galaxy, are returning to Earth once again. Inside a spaceship shared by Japanese and French youths, a tragicomic story unravels among these passengers who have been taught different histories.

Laurent Gutmann
Laurent Gutmann has been appointed Director of the Ecole nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre in august 2018.
Trained at Antoine Vitez's Chaillot school, he is a stage director, stage designer and company director. He directed the Centre Dramatique National de Thionville-Lorraine from 2004 to 2009. Winner of the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs competition, Knight of the Arts and Letters, he has directed numerous workshops at Ensatt but also at the Regional Actors' School of Cannes and Marseille, the National Higher School of Dramatic Art of Montpellier, the National Theatre of Strasbourg and the Higher School of Dramatic Art of Paris.

This marks the first joint venture by France-based violinist Sayaka Shoji and Toyooka resident Oriza Hirata. The structure of the work interposes texts by Hirata between the movements of
Chausson’s Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet. What words has Hirata woven into the music? Prepare for an exciting and entirely unpredictable journey.

Sayaka Shoji(Vioin)
The Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji has been described by Gramophone magazine as “a formidable musician, able to draw on huge reserves of stamina and the unflinching equal of anything thrown at her.” Sayaka Shoji has been supported by leading conductors such as Temirkanov, Mehta, Noseda, Jansons, Paavo Jarvi and she has worked with renowned orchestras including St Petersburg Philharmonic, The Mariinsky Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Recent highlights include Philharominia’s UK, Italy and Japan tours, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic at BBC Proms, Israel Philharmonic’s season opening concerts, recital tours with Ólafsson and Cascioli. In autumn 2022, she released a new album of Mozart’s violin sonatas with Cascioli. Shoji won the Mainichi Art Award in 2016, one of Japan’s most prestigious awards, presented to those who have had a significant influence on the arts. In 2012, she was named one of “The 100 Most Influential People for Japan in future” by Nikkei Business. Sayaka Shoji plays a Stradivarius ‘Recamier’ c.1729 kindly loaned to her by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry Ltd.

A young man who worked hard to support his family one day wakes up to find that he has transformed into a grotesque insect…. Startled awake one morning, he discovers that his body has been transformed into a horrifying bug…. As a bug, he experiences a change in his family’s attitude towards him….

CHUNCHEON CITY PUPPET THEATER COMPANY
According to the cultural and artistic development plan of Chuncheon city on April 13, 2020. The Chuncheon City Municipal Puppet Theater was established, becoming the first public puppet theater in the country.
Starting with the inaugural performance of “White Mountain”. Chuncheon City Municipal Puppet Theater plans to take the lead in popularizing puppetry in the Chuncheon area through regular and special performances every year. The theater aims to provide high-quality cultural content to citizens by presenting a variety of puppetry performances for children, teenagers, and adults, and become a trusted artistic organization.

In a puppet show for adults inspired by Japanese Bunraku theater, playwright and director Satoko Ichihara reinterprets the old legend of the “Blind Weakling” (Shuntokumaru). While in the original story children are abandoned, sick people are discriminated against, and ultimately everyone is redeemed, Ichihara goes far beyond the tragic tale of good and evil. She confronts us with the question of what happens when social taboos such as incest and pedophilia are transferred to dolls.
Ichihara replaces traditional bunraku dolls with sex dolls, mannequins, and other creatures that embody desire and violence. As narrator, called Gidayu in Bunraku, actress Sachiko Hara guides us through the story. Experimental musician Kakushin Nishihara combines traditional satsuma biwa sounds, noise and electronic music to create an extraordinary composition. Together they drive the story forward, mediate between worlds and bring the puppets to life.

Satoko Ichihara
Playwright, director, novelist and Artistic Director of Kinosaki International Arts Center（KIAC）. Ichihara Satoko has led the theater company Q since 2011. She writes and directs plays that deal with human behavior, the physiology of the body, and the unease surrounding these themes, using her unique sense of language and physical sensitivity.
In 2019, “The Bacchae−Holstein Milk Cows” based on a Greek tragedy, premiered at Aichi Triennale 2019 and won the 64th Kishida Kunio Playwriting Prize. In 2021, she co-produced “Madama Butterfly” with the Theater Neumarkt (Zurich).

Iwashita Toru has been performing silent improvised solo dances in non-theatrical settings such as outdoor spaces since 1989, borrowing his title from Tanikawa Shuntaro’s poetry collection Listening. The performance is improvised with no prior arrangement between dance and sound. This performance, a special offering at the Toyooka Theater Festival 2022, has presented jointly with saxophonist Umezu Kazutoki at Izushi Eirakukan, the oldest theater in the Kinki region. This year, it will be presented at the fishing port of Kozumi and at Genbudo Park, a national natural monument.

Toru Iwashita
Toru Iwashita is a dancer of the butoh dance company Sankaijuku. Through his solo improvisational work, he explores the potential of improvisational dance as a communication tool. He studied improvisational dance with Ishii Mitsutaka from 1982-85 and did his first solo performance in 1983. His solo dance work stems from his experience of dance as a means of recovering from mental crisis by reaffirming the limits of his own body. He begins by standing alone on stage, then dances spontaneously based on his communication with the space. He has worked worked with the psychiatry department at Konan Hospital in Shiga Prefecture since 1989 using dance therapy as treatment. He also holds workshops for both the able-bodied and disabled.