{"id":17282,"date":"2012-01-18T04:26:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T11:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=17282"},"modified":"2012-01-19T07:31:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T14:31:18","slug":"cameri-theatre-tokyo-metropolitan-theatre-co-production-ninagawa-to-direct-the-trojan-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=17282","title":{"rendered":"Cameri Theatre – Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Co-production: Ninagawa to Direct The Trojan Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa will direct Euripedes\u2019 The Trojan Women<\/em> in a co-production of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. The production will be performed in three languages \u2013 Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic with an international cast that will include actors from all three cultures. The play has been newly translated from Ancient Greek for this production, with Shimon Bouzaglo translating into Hebrew, Harue Yamagata into Japanese and into Arabic by Egyptian translator Amin Salaam. The project was initiated by Varda Fish in conjunction with the Cameri Theatre. Ninagawa\u2019s production of The Trojan Women<\/em> will premiere in Tokyo and Tel Aviv in December 2012.<\/p>\n

Yukio Ninagawa arrived in Israel with several of his colleagues, including Sonsho Inoue, a director who has been working with Ninagawa for many years, Tsukasa Nakagoshi, Ninagawa\u2019s permanent set designer, Yuriko Akishima, dramaturg and personal translator to Ninagawa, Harue Yamagata, translator of the play from Ancient Greek to Japanese, Hiroshi Takahagi, Deputy Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Minako Naito, General Producer of Performing Arts, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, and Nobuhide Hanei, a director\/photographer who is documenting the production process for a film about Ninagawa and for Japanese television. Ninagawa graciously met with the press at the Cameri Theatre with honored guests the Ambassador of Japan to Israel Hideo Sato; Raphael Gamzou, Deputy Director General, Cultural and Scientific Relations; Hiroshi Takahagi, Deputy Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and the members of Ninagawa\u2019s entourage, Noam Semel, Director General of the Cameri Theatre.<\/p>\n

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Ambassador of Japan to Israel Hideo Sato\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The co-production of The Trojan Women<\/em> is one of many events celebrating 60 years of diplomatic relations between Israel and Japan. Ambassador Sato noted that Israel was \u201cone of the first countries that approached Japan after World War II.\u201d The Ambassador has served in Israel in a diplomatic capacity since the 1970s, and speaks Hebrew very well. On a personal note, Ambassador Sato said, \u201cEuripides is one of my favorite writers,\u201d and he is looking forward to the production. Raphael Gamzou said, \u201cWe celebrate this political event through culture, Euripides anti-war play has special significance, it is the best expression of the aspirations of our two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director Yukio Ninagawa addressed the press in Japanese, and his comments were translated into English. There was much interest in the multi-lingual aspect of the play, on this topic, Ninagawa said, \u201cPeople who have totally different cultures, each group reaching to the other and understanding each other. That is the power of theatre and in this world of many differences to talk about hope – that is the role of theatre. To portray the tragedy of war and other issues, we\u2019re going to talk through The Trojan Women<\/em>.\u201d Ninagawa has worked with multi-lingual productions in the past and said that he found it, \u201cvery stimulating. I found so many different things through using different languages and different bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of his own path in theatre, Ninagawa said, \u201cMy generation was forced to learn European theatre since youth. Then we thought: if we don\u2019t learn the theatre of our own country, we won\u2019t be complete. How to blend unite Japanese identity with what we learned? That was the biggest job as director.\u201d Demonstrating the role of body language as well as speech in terms of cultural differences, Ninagawa said and complemented his words with the corresponding actions, \u201cIn European theatre when you talk about God you stand, in Japanese theatre you cross you leg to express invisible power. There are fundamental differences in the two different theatres, so we learned to accept each other\u2019s different cultures by learning these differences. Two actresses here today (Ola Shur-Selektar and Raida Adon) participated in workshops in Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yukio Ninagawa demonstrating differences between Japanese and European theatre languages\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ninagawa is greatly esteemed internationally, but said that it was far more difficult for him to gain acceptance in his own country: \u201cI have been considered an enfant terrible of Japan theatre because it doesn\u2019t look like European theatre; there is a lot of traditional Japanese theatre. Brecht, Stanislavsky that\u2019s not what I did, so I was not liked\u2026 Gradually the Japanese assessment changed.\u00a0 My Macbeth<\/em>, I placed it on a portable altar. According to Buddhism the souls of the dead, the souls of your ancestors are placed in a box inside that altar. The story of Macbeth<\/em> developed from Japanese feelings towards ancestry. I have a dialogue and approach Shakespeare in that way. When I did that in Japan, everyone said I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this production Ninagawa will be working with Arab and Jewish actors alongside Japanese actors, a production without a single common language among the creative team. How does one work with four languages? Ninagawa said, \u201cI don\u2019t understand the small nuances of the language, but when you really open up yourself and look how actors move, I can judge a lot\u2026 in order to learn the world and understand it you just have to go for difficult things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa will direct Euripedes\u2019 The Trojan Women in a co-production of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. The production will be performed in three languages \u2013 Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic with an international cast that will include actors from all three cultures. The play has been newly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}