Toshiki Okada Teppei Kaneuji
Eraser Mountain
© Yuri Moriya ©
© Yuri Moriya ©
©︎ Yuki Moriya ©
©︎ Yuki Moriya ©
Dramaturgy and direction, Toshiki Okada
Stage design, Teppei Kaneuji
With Izumi Aoyagi, Mari Ando, Yuri Itabashi, Takuya Harada, Makoto Yazawa, and Leon Kou Yonekawa
Costumes, Kyoko Fujitani (FAIFAI)
Lighting director, Masayoshi Takada (RYU)
Sound planner, Raku Nakahara (LUFTZUG)
Video director, Shimpei Yamada
A coproduction by T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers and Festival d’Automne à Paris. This show is produced in association with T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers and Festival d’Automne à Paris.
A production by chelfitsch
A coproduction by Kyoto Experiment ; Wiener Festwochen ; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Francfort) ; T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers, centre dramatique national ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
In association with T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With support from Fondation pour l’étude de la langue et de la civiliation japonaises under the auspices of Fondation de France, l'ONDA and the Agency for Cultural Affairs , Government of Japan through the Japan Arts Council
Is it possible to invent theatre that does not place human beings at the centre of the performance? The brutal reconstruction of a Japanese city decimated by the tsunami in 2011 is the starting point for a show which seeks to reinvent the relationship between man, objects and the world.
The city of Rikuzentakata, devasted by the earthquake undertook large-scale construction work in order to raise its ground level to protect itself against more tsunamis in the future. However, the use of local stones has caused serious damage to the surrounding mountains. The vision of this landscape reshaped by man has inspired Toshiki Okada and his company chelfitsch to embark upon a quest in the opposite direction : is it possible to move away from theatre's anthropocentrism in order to create, in the words of the director himself, « a theatre for things, a theatre of things » ? In order to conceive the staging for this radical process of de-centring, Toshiki Okada has called upon the artist and sculptor Teppei Kaneuji and his mastery of the art of collage. On a stage strewn with objects of all kinds, an evocation of the art of installation, the choreographed movements of the actors create the impression of individuals haunted by obliteration and disappearance. Similar to Current Location (2012), Ground and Floor (2013) and Time’s Journey Through a Room (2016), Eraser Mountain looks into the collective trauma that the Fukushima catastrophe brought about. Similarly, its dialogues invite us to re-think not only our place in our environment but also the foundations of theatrical representation.
––––––
Duration: 2h20
In Japanese with French subtitles
In the same place
Kurō Tanino Maître obscur
In what ways does the unstoppable development of artificial intelligence (AI) permeate our lives and behaviour? Kurō Tanino, playwright of the poetry of our everyday lives and the imperceptible movements of the psyche, brings to the stage a world in which technology reveals the depths of our unconscious.
Katerina Andreou Bless This Mess
The choreographer Katerina Andreou draws upon the constant confusion and noise of the world as the driving force in this her first group piece. Playfulness, absurdity, fiction and poetry arise from within this mental and emotional state.
Satoko Ichihara Yoroboshi: The Weakling
Taking his inspiration from traditional Japanese forms, playwright and director Satoko Ichihara brings us a puppet theatre for today's world. It is a troubled one, in which the story revolves around the ambiguous nature of the dolls. In this modern tale, loneliness, suffering and sexuality are the driving forces behind these puppets the various weaknesses of which makes them ever more human.
Marcus Lindeen, Marianne Ségol Memory of Mankind
By reconstituting four perfectly extraordinary, but very real, stories Marcus Lindeen and Marianne Ségol raise questions about the notion of memory. Their unique form of theatre, in which spoken words of a personal nature are exchanged and feed off each other, is scrupulously crafted and philosophical in equal measure.
Alice Laloy Le Ring de Katharsy
There are no puppets in this large-scale new work by puppeteer Alice Laloy. Instead, we encounter humans which have been transformed into avatars and then thrown into a ring In order to compete in increasingly violent matches. This mise en abyme, at the frontier between wrestling-inspired ritual and video game scenario, invites us to question the limits of a society which simply follows orders.