ACTIVITIES IN JAPAN
- Multifaceted Interchange with Local Communities
- Creating Suitable Stages for our Performances
- Artists-in-Residence Productions
- Atelier Shumpusha
- Fujimi Culture Hall KIRARI FUJIMI
Multifaceted Interchange with Local Communities
Seinendan is always eager to meet new audiences. We have found it exciting and inspiring to tour around various regions and meet local people who come to see our performance without any preconceptions. We do not just want to go, perform and leave. We have a multifaceted interchange framework for our tours, in which we incorporate various workshops and lectures as well as performances. We also promote artists-in-residence type productions, which enable us to put more time into each production.
Creating Suitable Stages for our Performances
Seinendan has developed a unique style of theater performance that most fits the small space of Komaba Agora Theater, Seinendan's home stage. Although we tend to choose small venues for our productions outside Komaba Agora, we also enjoy the challenge of encountering a new space and creating a piece that is suitable for it. This is another major objective of Seinendan's tours. One example of such a wonderful encounter is the performance of "Tokyo Note (Tokyo Notes)," set in the lobby of an art museum in the near future. We have performed this piece in real museum lobbies in various regions in Japan.
The way we tackle a large hall is with a unique method of "a small theater on stage," where we have an acting space and audience seats actually on the stage of the hall. This style was also used for the production of "Tokyo Notes" at National Drama Centers in France.
Artists-in-Residence Productions
Through our tours around Japan, we have developed collaborative relationships with local communities and regional theaters on a continuing basis. Oriza Hirata and Seinendan actors are keen to go and stay in one region for the whole rehearsal period of one original production, rather than merely being "guest director" and "guest actors." Out of these activities, Hirata won the Yomiuri Theater Award (Best Play Award) in 1996 for the production of "Tsuki no Misaki (Cape Moon)" which was produced in Kyoto. In 2007 Hirata's play "Tonariniitemo Hitori (Suddenly Married)" was produced in four prefectures in Japan (Mie, Hiroshima, Aomori and Kumamoto) and had a massive response from local communities.
Atelier Shumpusha
Atelier Shumpusha (Spring Wind Studio) is Seinendan's new studio theater, opened in November 2003, near Ikebukuro, Tokyo. We have refurbished the previous Atelier MODE, a space which had long been cherished in the theater community, into a new studio for experimental workshop productions. As a theater company consisting of various playwrights, directors and actors, we make full use of this facility as the venue for rehearsals and presentations of Seinendan Links and other productions.
Fujimi Culture Hall KIRARI FUJIMI
Hirata took a position as the artistic director of Fujimi Culture Hall Kirari Fujimi in Fujimi City in Saitama Prefecture, in the spring of 2002. There he introduced various projects for the facility, including dance, set-design, stage lighting, stage photo and other workshops, as well as theater festivals. He also developed a system to support both local and Tokyo-based theater companies by offering rehearsal spaces and opportunities to present their works to the citizens of Fujimi City. Hirata's own workshops and Seinendan productions were also held there. In 2007 he publicly recruited his successor as artistic director, which was the first attempt in the Japanese theatrical community, and resigned. In 2008 Kirari Fujimi won the JAFRA (Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Actitivities) Award, as the most successful public hall run by local authorities.
