Toshiki Okada
Five Days in March - Re-creation
Five Days in March © Hideto Maezawa ©
Five Days in March © Misako Shimizu ©
Five Days in March © Misako Shimizu ©
Written and directed by Toshiki Okada
With Chieko Asakura, Riki Ishikura, Yuri Itabashi, Ayaka Shibutani, Ayaka Nakama, Leon Kou Yonekawa, and Manami Watanabe
Set design, TORAFU ARCHITECTS
A chelfitsch production; KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre (Yokohama)
A coproduction with KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre (Yokohama) ; ROHM Theatre Kyoto ; and Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels)
Organised by Fondation du Japon
In association with Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture) ; Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With support from Onda
First performed on 1st December 2017 at KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre (Yokohama)
Shows performed as part of Japonismes 2018
With support from the Fondation franco-japonaise Sasakawa and Onda
Toshiki Okada, one of Japan’s foremost theatre directors, presents two pieces in which personal accounts are interwoven with major upheavals in history : Five Days in March, created in 2004, and his latest work Pratthana – A Portrait of Possession. Both are emblematic of the choreographic and theatrical work of Okada and his company chelfitsch.
Five Days in March, the chelfitsch company’s signature work, follows the everyday activities of Japanese youngsters during five days in March 2003, while the US began bombing Irak. In a present where time appears to stand still, the different characters make their way onto the stage one by one, and describe the events of these five days, wielding the prosaic and stylised language of Tokyo’s youth. The director plays upon the disarticulation between this spoken word and the bodies with their borrowed postures, the movements of which have been dissected - revealed - by the virtuoso precision of the choreography. The toing-and-froing between the spoken word and its incarnation, between the present moment and the distant theatre of war, enables Okada to build up a portrait of a generation struggling to find itself. Almost fifteen years after its creation, the piece, performed by a new troop of young actors, echoes, in a unique way, the era we live in, at a time when the question of political will is as urgent as ever.
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Running time : 1h30
Performed in Japanese, with French subtitles
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