Maxime Kurvers

The director Maxime Kurvers furthers his research in theatrical anthropology by bringing the actress Yuri Itabashi face-to-face with the ban which prevents her, in accordance with tradition, from performing Okina, a play and ritual originating from nō theatre. As such, this piece is about how, through the power of the imagination, we can embrace what is forbidden to us.

Toshiki Okada, a critically-acclaimed figure on the Japanese theatre scene, probes the mechanisms and symptoms of our society. Mixing together science fiction and poetry within the confines of a group on a space expedition, his new play The Window of Spaceship ‘In-Between’ tackles the issues of distancing and the definition of humanity.

Brought to the public eye by Ryūichi Sakamoto, Kakushin Nishihara takes the biwa, the short-necked lute which is emblematic of Japanese musical tradition, to undreamt of horizons. Her intense presence transforms each of her concerts into an almost shamanic ceremony.

The profession of the geisha, an emblematic figure of a fantasized vision of Japan, is often a little-known one, and which is also in the process of disappearing. Going beyond the stereotypical vision we have of them, what is the reality of their practice? In this documentary performance, Shingo Ōta and Kyoko Takenaka set out in search of the last geishas of the Japanese archipelago.