Photo: Tomasz Raczyński.
Following their recent success at festivals in Jelenia Góra and Toruń, and the Tri-city premiere of the new version of Nomadka [Nomad], Amareya Theatre & Guests is set to return to Japan for four presentations of the piece. Amareya Theatre & Guests are a strong voice on Polish independent theatre stage, contributing to the discussion on the protection of endangered cultures, individual and national identities, as well as the power of testimony in the age of post-truth.
Amareya Theatre & Guests?s tour of Japan includes four presentations of Nomad in Sapporo and Tokyo. The company?s visit to Japan starts on 28 November and concludes on 10 December 2017.
Performed by Amareya Theatre & Guests and featuring the Inuit Louise Fontain (Grenland/Norway), Nomad was invited to Japan as a piece that addresses cultural colonization and the struggle for individual identity and protection of endangered cultures.
On 30 November-1 December 2017, Amareya Theatre & Guests will give two presentations of Nomad as part of the International Conference on Ethnic Minorities. This will mark another instalment of this nomadic theatre project. The Sapporo presentations will feature two representatives of the Ainu people affiliated with Ainu Women?s Association in Hokkaido ? Ainu Moshir. The inclusion of their stories in the tissue of the piece is of tremendous importance in the context of the ongoing discourse on ethnic minorities and possibilities for dialogue on individual and collective identity, ethnicity, and cultural appropriation.
While in Sapporo, Amareya Theatre & Guests will find themselves amidst esteemed artists from Greenland Finland, Japan, and Sweden, including Julie Edel Hardenberg (Greenland), Antonie Grahamsdaughter (Canada/Sweden), Koji Yuki (Japan), Britta Marakatt Labba (Sweden), Tomas Colbengtson (Sweden), Per Isak Jusso (Sweden), Lena Stenberg (Sweden), Outi Pieski (Finland), Amanda Kernell (Sweden), Torgeir Vassvik (Norway), Anni Linn Fjällström (Sweden), who represent the art of the Inuit, Sami, and Ainu ethnic minorities.
Additionally, during a conference in Sapporo dr Pastuszak will give a lecture on professor Bronisław Piłsudski?s research on the Ainu people, combined with a discussion on the role of theatre and dance in the process of excavating the concealed stories of systemic oppression of ethnic minorities.
Amareya Theatre & Guests will also visit Tokyo at the invitation of the Gekidan Kaitaisha Theatre, with whom the Polish company has collaborated since 2005. On 8-9 December 2017, Amareaya will present Nomad at the Sanaizaka Studio in Tokyo. The presentation will be held as part of the project Theatre of Testimony 2017 ? Amareya Theatre and Guests (Poland) ? Gekidan Kaitaisha (Japonia) organised by the Gekidan Kaitaisha Theatre. The Japanese lineup of Amareya Theatre & Guests includes Katarzyna Pastuszak, Louise Fontain, Daniela Komędera, Aleksandra Śliwińska, and Monika Wińczyk.
Nomad recounts the true story of Louise Fontain, who was born in Greenland and as a child was deported to Denmark along with thousands of other children. The deportation was part of a Danish governmental project aimed at the re-education of young Greenlanders to mould them into ?real? Danes. As a result of a chain of circumstances, Louise Fontain spent many years in exile, forgetting her native language and remaining out of touch with her family. Many years later, she returned to Greenland and began to re-establish the lost bonds with her kin and homeland. Today, she takes to the stage with Amareya Theatre & Guests to present a universal story of a woman who finds herself anew on the path of life as a courageous, independent, empowered subject. Nomad is a timely voice on the issue of exile, ?cultural genocide? and the search for one?s own identity. The piece was presented, among others, at the 11th International Dance and Theatre Festival (Theatre X, Tokyo), at the Sisimiut Kulturhus (Greenland), and National Theatre of Greenland in Nuuk. In 2015 Katarzyna Pastuszak was nominated for the prestigious ?Splendor Gedanensis? prize for directing Nomad. The fact that Polish artists take on the issue of victimization of ethnic minorities such as the Inuit or Ainu peoples, while underscoring the strength and value of national and cultural identity, seems particularly poignant in the current international context.
The Japanese presentations by Amareya Theatre & Guests feat. Louise Fontain have been made possible thanks to the support of culture.pl (Adam Mickiewicz Institute ? ?Polish Culture Worldwide?), Polish Institute in Tokyo, DTS (Norway) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
