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Migrating Women Stories is the lead theme of the upcoming presentations by the Amareya Theatre & Guests, who go on tour accompanied by ethnic minority women from Greenland through Hokkaido. The Japanese and Polish tour will feature two premieres, as well as a revival of the popular Nomad Woman.
In October 2018, the Tricity-based company Amareya Theatre & Guests will visit Japan, where it will present two premieres: Deadman Eating Watermelon, which will be presented as an invited piece as part of the Revolt of the Flesh ? 50 years after Niukutai no Hanran ? Hijikata Tatsumi to Nihonjin event in Tokyo, and Ainu Moshir ? Ainu Womb ? Stories of Ainu Women, developed as part of the herstory-dance workshops with Ainu women in Sapporo. The Polish instalment of the tour, on the other hand, will include the revival of the award-winning piece Nomad Woman featuring Ainu women artists.
The Amareya Theatre & Guests is a Polish dance company that combines Japanese butoh with contemporary dance. The award-winning productions of the Amareya Theatre & Guests (Audience Award at the 2017 PESTKA Festival for Nomad Woman; two-time nomination for the Splendor Gedanensis award) takes on the themes of identity, individual stories, and the amplification of the voice of various marginalised groups. The Amareya Theatre & Guests have performed in France, Greenland, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Norway, and Japan, among others.
Deadman Eating Watermelon ponders over the theme of the father as an ?absent/present? figure. The piece features Katarzyna Pastuszak and Aleksandra Śliwińska, who have contributed to the Amareya Theatre for years, probing the life of Hijikata Tatsumi and his Ankoku butoh. The piece has been inspired by the memories of the fathers of both artists ? unaccommodating, often absent, hanging between life and death.
Ainu Moshir ? Ainu Womb ? Ainu Women Storiesis a result of the collaboration between the Amareya Theatre & Guests and the Ainu Women?s Association in Sapporo, which associates women of the Ainu ethnic minority, which lives in the north of Japan. Though they have their own distinct culture and language, the Ainu people are among the most stigmatised groups in the Japanese society. During the herstory-dance workshops, the Ainu women and the Polish artists will share their experience and stories related to the creation of a women?s community. The combination of the two languages ? traditional Ainu culture and contemporary dance ? will yield a collaborative performance that strives to create a space for mutual understanding which transcends cultural divides.
Nomad Woman is an interdisciplinary performative project that touches upon the issues of resettlement, migration, and discrimination. Its fabric involves the story of Louise Fontaine, a Greenlander who was deported to Denmark as a child, along with thousands of other children. Nomad Woman is also a symbolic space for all those searching for their lost identity. Each successive revival of the piece has been shown in different cultural contexts and featuring artists hailing from different countries. Thus, the project has become a trans-cultural journey through cultures, their languages and symbols, while also recounting their shared experience. During the forthcoming Amareya tour, the company will perform Nomad Woman accompanied by Ainu women artists.
Amareya Theatre & Guests Japan And Poland Tour 2018
5 October 2018 ? Tokyo? Premiere of ?Deadman Eating Watermelon? (?????????, Suika wo taberu shisha) ? as part of Revolt of the Flesh ? 50 years after Niukutai no Hanran ? Hijikata Tatsumi to Nihonjin, Hijikata Archive ? Keio University Art Center
6-12 October 2018 ? Sapporo ? ?Ainu Moshir ? Ainu Womb ? Ainu Women Stories? ? workshops and premiere featuring Ainu women artists; workshops held by: Katarzyna Pastuszak, Monika Popow, Aleksandra Śliwińska
18 October 2018 ? Cracow ? ?Nomad Woman? featuring Louise Fontain, Utae Ehara, Tsugumi Matsudaira and others; staged as part of the conference on Bronisław Piłsudski and his research on the Ainu People ? Museum of Japanese Art and Technology Manggha
23 October ? Gdańsk ? ?Nomad Woman? ? New Synagogue
27 October ? Poznań ? ?Nomad Woman? ? Eighth Day Theatre
Partners: Adam Mickiewicz Institute (culture.pl), Polish Institute Tokyo, City of Gdańsk, Hijikata Archive Keio University Art Centre (Tokyo), Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies (Sapporo), Pirka Kotan ? Ainu Cultural Centre, Ainu Women?s Association.
Special thanks to professor Hiroshi Maruyama, professor Morishita Takashi, Ryoko Tahara and the Ainu Women’s Association, and the Museum of Japanese Art and Technology Manggha in Cracow.
