International Co-production

"RE/PLAY Dance Edit" Tokyo version

9-11 February 2019
Kichijoji Theatre, Tokyo


Junnosuke Tada, a renowned Japanese theatre maker, created Re/Play in 2011 for his company, Tokyo Deathlock. The piece explored the intent and meaning of re-production through the bodily repetition of physical movement. In 2012, it was remade as a dance production that’s been re-staged several times in Asian countries. In these productions, leading choreographers-dancers from Japan, Singapore, Cambodia, and the Philippines collaborated to develop the choreography. Popular songs are repeated continuously while eight dancers push themselves to total exhaustion. It is a structure that subverts the reason and meaning of dance while revealing the urgency of life and the chaotic nature of contemporary society.

Direction: Junnosuke Tada (JP)
Choreographer-dancers: Kitamari (JP), Teita Iwabuchi (JP), Aokid (JP), Ayako Saitoh (JP), Sheriden Newman (SG), Sophal Sor (CMB), Carissa Adea (PH), John Paul Ortenero (PH)




Ticket


International Co-production "RE/PLAY Dance Edit" Tokyo version

Date:
February 9 (Sat) 19:00 / 10 (Sun) 19:00 / 11 (Mon) 18:00

*Duration: 90 min. (no interval)
*The box office opens 45 min. prior to the start of the performance.
The door opens 30 min. prior to the start of the performance.

Tickets (unreserved seating) :
Adv General ¥3,500 Door General ¥4,000
Adv Under 25 ¥3,000 Door Under 25 ¥3,500
Musashino Cultural Foundation Member ¥3,000 (Adv only)
TPAM Registrant Benefit: ¥3,000 (Adv only)

Ticketing Information
(Reservation starts at 10AM on Saturday, December 1.)
■ RE/PLAY Dance Edit ONLINE → More Info
■ The Musashino Cultural Foundation → More Info|0422-54-2011
■ TPAM → More Info (TPAM Registrant only)

Venue:
Kichijoji Theatre → More Info

Access:
5 minutes walk from the north exit of ‘Kichijoji Station’ on the JR Chuo Line or Keio Inokashra Line.
Address: 1-33-22 Honmachi, Kichijoji, Musashino, Tokyo 180-0004
Tel. 0422-22-0911
GoogleMap

Credit:
Producer:Matsue Okazaki
Lighting Designer:Tamotsu Iwaki
Stage Manager:Hisashi Mitsu
Sound Engineer:Akira Aikawa (Sound Weeds Inc.)
Interpreter:Ritsuko Saito
Flier design:Taichi Abe(TAICHI ABE DESIGN INC.)
Web design:Kazuya Kato

Production & Organizer:RE/PLAY Dance Edit Committee, Offsite Dance Project
Co-production:TheatreWorks, Amrita Performing Arts, Kyoto Art Center, Sipat Lawin Ensemble
Cooperation with:The Musashino Cultural Foundation
Supported by:Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture), Japan Arts Council
Production Support:Tokyo Deathlock
With assistance from:Steep Slope Studio






About


Director’s Message - Junnosuke Tada

"RE/PLAY Dance Edit" is based on my play "Re/Play,” which I created for my theatre company Tokyo Deathlock after the 2011 great earthquake of Northeastern Japan. The premier of “Dance Edit" was at the “We dance Kyoto 2012” dance festival, under the heading of "Theater and Dance/Interchange of Physicality." In this dance performance, I kept same themes of "unrepeatability" and "interruption." I also maintained the structure that expressed life and time ironically through relentless repetition. In the original, actors continued movements without interference from each other. They persistently created and destroyed images from pop music. However, it was indeed the change in physicality, the difference between actors and dancers, that transformed the play into a completely different piece.
Actors, for example, are better at expressing a lonely human because they exist as a human on stage. Dance and dancers, on the other hand, can represent loneliness itself since they express through physicality. For “Dance Edit,” I introduced a new direction: to “dance/not dance.” Through their dance, dancers go back and forth between their humanity and physicality. They go from “person” to “body,” and then from “body” to “dance.” One of the objectives of this piece is to share with the audience performance as something beyond this gradation and preceding that, the contextualization of “theater” and “dance.”
The choreography and parameters that define “dance/not dance” are decided individually by each dancer through the process of confronting their own bodies and their dance. On stage, each dancer’s body and his or her own idea of dance, and the disconnection and chaos of cultural backgrounds become the various hues that draws the focus of the observer. Through repetition and the passage of time, the work asks: “What is dance?” “What is this world?” I consider stage performance a sharing of questions so that we can live in the present.
This work started on the border between theatre and dance. As it moved between Kyoto, Yokohama, Singapore, Cambodia and the Philippines, it was not just a performance on tour. With the participation of local dancers in each country, it became a work that blended borders. This is the very state of Asia — an attempt for coexistence while embracing borders and diversity. The work continues with the desire to present various perspectives on the formation of present and future Asia, not only for dance fans but also for a wide range of people. The performing arts are a plea from the present to the future.




Initiator’s Message – Kitamari

Starting in Kyoto in 2012, the departure point for “RE/PLAY Dance Edit” was a series of questions I had about dance. What is the borderline between stage direction and choreography? What is the balance between concept and dance? What is audience-oriented dance? What is dance’s strength? I did not get any answers by looking back at my own work, and watching works by other dance artists only further complicated my questions. Why do we need dance? I was struggling to find a dance piece that would move me. I was not able to create such a work by myself; I needed help from others. So I contacted Junnosuke Tada.
“RE/PLAY Dance Edit” is created within a simple framework of not dance, dance, and beyond dance. It also asks the question of why showing physical movements to an audience becomes a form of expression. What is dance in the first place? A question does not have to find an answer. Instead, it can bring out a series of discoveries, which leads to further questions. “RE/PLAY Dance Edit,” provides this sort of reply to my questions.
What can we receive through each other’s bodies beyond the barriers of country and language? This work continues to repeatedly ask this fundamental question. “RE/PLAY Dance Edit” has been performed in Kyoto, Yokohama, Singapore, Phnom Penh, Kyoto and Manila with the question: “Is it thought or body that survives after 90 minutes of repetition?” And at the same time, I believe the work has functioned as a platform for the dancers to share a spirit of inquiry and awareness of the issues each of us individually face as we work with our own body language and choreography.
Junnosuke Tada is a stage director who is sometimes described as violent. However, I am sorry to say we dancers are far more violent than him. We shiver with the pleasure of dancing on stage without any regard for the safety of our own body. I hope this journey presents new values and possibilities for the dancers and audience in each location, and also a bit of the sense of new possibilities and values for the future of dance.



Premiere performance: 4 Feb 2012 / Former Risei Elementary School, Kyoto
Yokohama version: 14-16 Feb 2014 / Steep Slope Studio, Yokohama
Singapore version: 17-20 Feb 2016 / 72-13, Singapore
Cambodia version: 24-25 Mar 2017 / Department of Performing Arts, Phnom Penh
Kyoto version: 25-26 Nov 2017 / Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto
Philippines version: 13-14 Jan / Power Mac Center Spotlight, Manila




Artist



Junnosuke Tada:

Born in 1976, Junnosuke formed his company “Tokyo Deathlock” in 2001. His direction focuses on the concept that “manifestation equals phenomenon” and that this manifestation includes a performer’s body, the audience, and the space. With his unconventional approach to the framework of established theater, each of his projects generates intriguing discussions both within Japan and abroad. He has been the artistic director of the Kirari Fujimi Cultural Centre of Fujimi City since 2010. He is the first international winner of the Director Award in the Donga Theater Awards of Korea with the Korean-Japanese collaboration ‘KARUMEGI’ in 2013. In 2018, he was appointed Director of APAF (Asian Performing Arts Forum).



Kitamari:

Born in 1983, Kitamari started dancing under the direction of dancer Masami Yurabe. She started working solo upon entering university in 2002 and formed her company “KIKIKIKIKIKI” in 2003. In 2008 she received the Audience Award of the Toyota Choreography Award and the grand prize in the Yokohama Solo X Duo Competition in 2010. She also won the New Artist Award at the National Arts Festival in 2016. Kitamari continually crosses boundaries by directing, choreographing, and dancing in a range of performances, as well as producing projects that expand the possibilities for performing arts and are vital to the contemporary dance scene.





Teita Iwabuchi:

Teita majored Drama and studied Japanese traditional dance and Butoh in Tamagawa University. He performed in Ko Murobushi’s Butoh performances from 2007 to 2015 and was strongly influenced by his work. Teita’s performances focuses on the “structure of the body” and the “interaction between space, music and body.” His work “Hetero” (Co-choreographed with Kaori Seki) received France’s Ambassador of Japan Award at the Yokohama Dance Collection EX 2012. Teita created his unique bodily expression method “web body,” which is inspired by Butoh, martial arts, biology, neuroscience, philosophy etc. He is the residence artist of Steep Slope Studio.





Aokid:

Born in Tokyo in 1988, Aokid has his roots in breakdance, which he started at the age of fourteen. After participating in “Tokyo ElectrockStairs”, he started his solo career and received Adjudicator’s Award at the Yokohama Dance Collection 2016 (Co-created with Takumi-chan). His projects are not limited to the existing field of dance but includes other forms of events such as exhibitions of his drawings and installations, guerrilla performance “Dobutsuen (Zoo)” and parties.





Ayako Saitoh:

Born in 1990 in Osaka, Ayako started dance from young age. She graduated from the dance course of the Theatrical Arts Department at the Osaka University of Arts. While in the university, she performed as Carmen in Norihiko Mochizuki’s ballet “Carmen.” Recently she has participated in a number of performances by Makoto Saitoh, Tomoko Imanaka, Scarabe, Yuko Takano, Kitamari/KIKIKIKIKIKI. As an assistant choreographer, she participates many performances by Makoto Saitoh. From 2015, Ayako started “…1[amariichi]”, a unit with Sachi Masuda.





Sheriden Newman:

Born in Australia, a resident of Singapore. Sheriden graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance (2006) and Queensland University of Technology, Australia (2010), with BFA in Dance. She joined Maya Dance Theatre (Singapore, 2011–2015). In 2015 She founded the dance collective, Soul Signature, with independent dance artist Sufri Juwahir. Recently the duo collaborated on their work, “Decipher” which won three awards at the International Choreography Competition in Germany.





Sophal Sor:

Sophal is a dancer at the Amrita Performing Arts, a contemporary dance and production company in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He studied Lakhaon Kaol (Cambodian classical male masked dance) at the Secondary School of Fine Arts, graduating in 2010. Upon his graduation, he performed extensively with Sovann Phum Khmer Arts Association, a local large shadow puppetry theater company. He has participated in numerous contemporary dance workshops and has been featured in several works by Cambodian and international artists





Carissa Adea:

Carissa is a former principal dancer of Ballet Philippines, dancing with the company for 15 years. She is a grantee of Asian Cultural Council fellowship in New York City in 2014. She is now a freelance dance artist and choreographer based in Manila.





John Paul Ortenero:

John Paul has trained in classical and modern ballet, jazz and street dance. He is the first Filipino male candidate to finish the new Royal Academy of Dance Advanced 2 Vocational Male Syllabus with distinction. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in communication, and dabbles between teaching jazz and ballet for kids and teaching Stott Pilates.






Archive


Premiere performance: 4 Feb 2012 / Former Risei Elementary School, Kyoto

Yokohama version: 14-16 Feb 2014 / Steep Slope Studio, Yokohama

Singapore version: 17-20 Feb 2016 / 72-13, Singapore
http://www.wedance.jp/replay/replay2015
https://replay2016.wordpress.com

Cambodia version: 24-25 March 2017 / Department of Performing Arts, Phnom Penh
http://www.wedance.jp/replay/replay2016

Kyoto version: 25-26 Nov 2017 / Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto
http://www.kac.or.jp/events/22001/

Philippines version: 13-14 Jan / Power Mac Center Spotlight, Manila
https://mnllikha.wixsite.com/replaymanila
http://www.wedance.jp/replay/replay2017


Leaflet (English, Japanese) 

FY2015 Edition: Published by Offsite Dance Project / 30 March 2016
→ PDF

FY2016 Edition: Published by Offsite Dance Project / 30 April 2017
→ PDF

FY2017 Edition: Published by Offsite Dance Project / 30 April 2018
→ PDF



Contact Information


RE/PLAY Dance Edit Committee
Address: Green Room, 4-1-6 Nishi-nippori, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo Japan 116-0013
E-mail: info@wedance.jp

Offsite Dance Project
Address: 10-1-202 Ikebukuro, Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan 231-0834
E-mail: info@offsite-dance.jp
URL: http://www.offsite-dance.jp 

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© RE/PLAY Dance Edit Committee