Pictured: Katarzyna Pastuszak. Photo: A. Karing.
Following its last year?s successful appearances in Tokyo, Greenland, Israel and Russia, the tricity-based Amareya Theatre will return to the Country of Cherry Blossoms.Gdansk-based artists Katarzyna Pastuszak and Joanna Duda will present ?EXTRACTS from Yameru maihime? at two international festivals in Japan in August and September. On August 20, the duo will appear at the Butoh International in Minato organized by the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive ? Keio University Art Centre in Tokyo, and on September 1, they will perform at the Tohoku Fringe Festival in Aomori. On August 19, Katarzyna Pastuszak will also hold a dance master class featuring live music by Joanna Duda, and on August 21, Tokyo?s Hot Buttered Club will host Joanna Duda?s solo concert titled ?KOT ? QU ? KO ? RA?.
Tokyo?s Butoh International Festival and Aomori?s Tohoku Festival Fringe are international events organized by the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive, Keio University Art Centre in Tokyo, in collaboration with the Portfolio Butoh research organization and the Terayama Shuji Museum in Aomori.
The invitation of Katarzyna Pastuszak and Joanna Duda is a result of a long-standing co-operation between the Amareya Theatre and the Japanese theater milieu, as well as the publication of dr. Pastuszak?s book ?Ankoku but? Hijikaty Tatsumieto ? teatr ciała-w-kryzysie? [Hijikata Tatsumi?s Ankoku butoh ? Theater of the body-in-crisis?, which describes her practical and theoretical research on butoh theater. It is worth adding that ?Yameru maihime_prolog? was directly inspired by the works of Hijikata Tatsumi. The performance premiered in May 2015 as a production of the Culture Scholarship of the City of Gdansk.
Katarzyna Pastuszak?s and Joanna Duda?s residence in Japan will also be devoted to the preparation of a large Polish-Japanese project entitled ?Kantor_Tropy? [Kantor_Tropes], which the Amareya Theatre implements in collaboration with the Tokyo-based Theatre X and eminent choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, as well as other Japanese artists. ?Kantor_Tropy? will premiere in October 2015 at the Baltic Sea Culture Centre and the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre. During their residence in Japan (August 17 ? September 5, 2015), Katarzyna Pastuszak and Joanna Duda will also attend working meetings with the co-producer of ?Kantor_Tropy?, Ms. Misako Ueda (Theatre X, Tokyo), as well as Saburo Teshigawara, Rihoko Satoh and other Japanese artists involved in the project. Pastuszak and Duda will also participate in the 8th Seminar on Tadeusz Kantor held by Theatre X in Tokyo. The seminar will be held as part of the Tadeusz Kantor GoEnNen Performance Festival 2015, during which the Gdansk-based artists will present ?Kantor_Tropy? (the presentation of the project has been scheduled for December 2015).
