CANDIES~girlish hardcore
[2010, Japan] theater
Composed music with Yow Funahashi (musician / composer) and Skank (musician / composer) for theater pieces directed by Shirotama Hitsujiya and presented by Yubiwa Hotel Performing Arts Company.
©YUBIWAHotel 2012 Photo:Kunihiko Hatase
Mesujika DOE
[2009, Japan & U.S.A.] theater
International theater project with a North American playwright Trista Baldwin and a Japanese director Shirotama Hitsujiya. I worked as the project’s dramaturg to co-create this multi-lingual play, which explores the issues of mutable identities and core of the self across nations, languages, cultures, and genders. Developed through many years of research, workshops, and work-in-progress presentations, the piece attempted to address both Japanese and American audiences without the use of subtitles.
Photo: Rich Fleishchman
Playwright’s Center, Minneapolis, Theater Yugen, San Francisco, and Jan. 2012 Morisita Studio, Tokyo, among other locations in the U.S. and Japan.
TOKYO BORDERS TRAVEL SKETCH: The Seven Deadly Sins
[2006, Japan] site-specific performance, audience participatory theater
In 2005, I founded an art group called minorimajorite-travel with Shirotama Hitsujiya (theater director) and Ayako Miyake (art education producer) to investigate the issues of identity from multiple perspectives through creative dialogues between what may be minorities / majorities in a society. A project entitled “Tokyo Borders Travel Sketch” challenged unspoken borders within a society between “abled” and “disabled,” which could be inverted depending on a context. Professional and non-professional performers with experiences of disability due to their minority status in contemporary Tokyo were brought together through grassroots outreach and open calls for audition. The project team included people with various physical and mental disabilities, a gender identity disorder, and an eating disorder, as well as sexual minorities, a former alcoholic, a foreign resident, and a homeless person. Together, we formed a caravan and traveled across different layers of Tokyo, which were often invisible or inaccessible without certain perspectives or backgrounds. As a result of this year-long research and creation process, an audience participatory tour-performance entitled “The Seven Deadly Sins” was presented on April 2006, with support from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Bureau of Transportation and the Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company Social Welfare Program. The performances took place throughout a day, on public buses, streets, and at a warehouse-turned-theater, in Tokyo. While the audience members traveled with the performers, they were constantly asked to define themselves among others. By inviting people to become aware of how they draw borders, the project attempted to visualize our unconscious and yet universal processes of identification and discrimination.
on public buses, streets, and Space EDGE, Tokyo, Japan
Upacara Bayu Ruci: Making Love with the Winds of Solo
[2004, Indonesia] site-specific performance, audience participatory ritual
I created and directed a ritual celebration of the wind spirits at a Javanese temple from the 15th Century on Mount Lawu in Central Java. With support from the Tourism Department of Karaganyar District Government, the event was realized in collaboration with Suprapto Suryodarmo (meditation movement artist), Daryl Wilson (visual artist), Kaori Okado (choreographer), a Javanese gamelan ensemble, and dancers from the local and international communities, as well as the mountain village residents and the audience. The audience was an integral part of the ritual, in which they were invited to “make love” with the wind using multiple senses, through listening, smelling, seeing, tasting, touching, and etc.
Sukuh Temple, Karanganyar, Indonesia.
Allison’s Journey
[1999, U.S.A.] concert music
Filter Works:
© Tomoko Momiyama