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Angura
, also known as the "Little Theater" (小劇場, ''shōgekijō'') movement, was a Japanese avant-garde theater movement in the 1960s and 1970s that reacted against the Bertolt Brecht, Brechtian modernism and formalist realism of postwar ''Shingeki'' theater in Japan to stage anarchic "underground" productions in tents, on street corners, and in small spaces that explored themes of primitivism, sexuality, and embodied physicality. The term "Angura" was an abbreviation of the Japanese phrase "underground theater" (アンダーグラウンド演劇, ''andaaguraundo engeki''). Major figures in the Angura movement included Shūji Terayama, Jūrō Kara, Makoto Satō (theater), Makoto Satō, Minoru Betsuyaku, Yoshiyuki Fukuda, and Tadashi Suzuki. Renowned graphic artist Yokoo Tadanori produced numerous promotional artworks for Angura productions, and helped co-found the Angura theater troupe Tenjō Sajiki. Background Angura emerged in the early 1960s, in reaction to the structural and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Yoshiyuki Fukuda
is a Japanese playwright, screenwriter, and director. Remembered as one of the founding figures of the ''Angura'' ("underground") theatre movement in Japan, Fukuda also served as chairman of the Japan Directors Association from 2003 to 2007. Early life Yoshiyuki Fukuda was born Taizō Kōnosu in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo on October 21, 1931. After graduating from Azabu High School, he enrolled at the University of Tokyo where he graduated with a degree in French literature in 1954. While still in school, he co-wrote a play with playwright Asaya Fujita and staged it at the 1953 May Festival. After graduating, Fukuda briefly worked as a reporter for the Tokyo Times newspaper before joining the Mingei Theatre Company as an assistant director, later branching out into play writing under the guidance of his mentor Junji Kinoshita. Shingeki and Angura As a member of the ''Shingeki'' ("new theatre") movement, Fukuda's early works adopted a socialist realist stance, as reflected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jūrō Kara
was a Japanese avant-garde playwright, theatre director, author, actor, and songwriter. He was at the forefront of the ''Angura'' ("underground") theatre movement in Japan. Career Graduating from Meiji University, Kara formed his own theatre troupe, Jōkyō Gekijo (Situation Theatre), in 1963. They began performing in a red tent in Hanazono Shrine in Shinjuku in 1967. According to the theatre historian, David G. Goodman, "Kara conceived his theatre in the premodern mold of ''kabuki''—not the sanitized, aestheticized variety performed today, but the erotic, anarchic, plebeian sort performed during the Edo period (1600–1868) by itinerant troupes of actors who were rejected by bourgeois society as outcasts and 'riverbed beggars.' Emulating their itinerant forebears, Kara and his troupe performed throughout Japan in their mobile red tent." Kara won the Kishida Prize for Drama for ''Shojo kamen'' (The Virgin's Mask) in 1969, and the Akutagawa Prize for his novel ''Sagawa-kun ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Shingeki
was a leading form of theatre in Japan that was based on modern realism. Born in the early years of the 20th century, it sought to be similar to modern Western theatre, putting on the works of the ancient Greek classics, William Shakespeare, Molière, Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekov, Tennessee Williams, and so forth. As it appropriated Western realism, it also introduced women back onto the Japanese stage. History Historical background The origin of Shingeki is linked to various movements and theatre companies. Scholars associate its origin with the kabuki reform movement, the founding of the Bungei Kyokai (Literary Arts Movement) in 1906, and the Jiyū Gekijō (Free Theatre) in 1909.Jortner, David, et al., editors. ''Modern Japanese Theatre and Performance''. Lexington Books, 2006. Also relevant is the establishment of an Ibsen Society in Japan, the Ipusen-kai, by Kunio Yanagita in 1903 to study Ibsen's plays. The Meiji Restoration in 1868 had led to the introduction of Western ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tadashi Suzuki
is a Japanese avant-garde theatre director, writer, and philosopher. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), and organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival). With American director Anne Bogart, he co-founded the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in Saratoga Springs, New York. He is the creator of the "Suzuki method" of actor training, which emphasizes stylized body work and physicality drawing from dance and elements of traditional Japanese theater. Suzuki was the general artistic director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) (1995~2007), an international committee member of the Theatre Olympics; a founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (演劇祭), jointly organized by leading theatre artists from Japan, China and Korea; and, chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a nationwide network of theatre professionals in Japan. Career Suzuki became involved in the '' A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hikaru Hayashi
was a Japanese composer, pianist and Conducting, conductor. Hayashi is considered to be one of the most renowned and accomplished Japanese composers of the postwar Japan, postwar period. In particular, Hayashi was noted for his choral suite ''Scenes from Hiroshima'' (1958–2001). In exploring the possibilities of Japanese language opera, Hayashi composed more than 30 operas. He was artistic director and resident composer of the Opera Theatre Konnyakuza. His oeuvre also includes symphonic works, works for band, chamber music, choral works, songs and more than 100 film scores. Hayashi was also the author of more than 20 books including ''Nihon opera no yume'' (日本オペラの夢 ''The Dream of Japanese Opera''). In 1998 Hayashi won the 30th Suntory Music Award. Early life Hikaru Hayashi was born in Tokyo on October 22, 1931. He was the cousin of renowned flautist Ririko Hayashi. Hayashi's father was a physician who had graduated from Keiō University Medical School, and had s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gekidan Mingei
The is a Japanese theatre company that stages Shingeki plays. Along with the Haiyuza Theatre Company and Bungakuza it is considered one of the "Big Three" among Shingeki theatre troupes. History Gekidan Mingei, meaning "The People's Art Theatre Company," was founded in 1950 by Jūkichi Uno, Osamu Takizawa, Tanie Kitabayashi, Hideji Ōtaki, and others. As befitted its name, one of the company's early slogans was "theatre for everyone." At the time of its formation, Gekidan Mingei had only 12 members: 11 actors and 1 director. However, it met with success, and by 1960, it had grown to comprise 119 members, including 52 actors, 13 directors, 16 administrative staff, and 39 apprentices. In the 1950s, Gekidan Mingei was viewed as strongly left-wing, with many of its members boasting affiliations with the Japan Communist Party (JCP). In 1960, the members of Gekidan Mingei participated in the Anpo protests against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. However, many younger m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Shūji Terayama
was a Japanese avant-garde poet, artist, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (''Angura'') theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Many critics view him as one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He has been cited as an influence on various Japanese filmmakers from the 1970s onward. Life Terayama was born December 10, 1935, in Hirosaki, Aomori, the only son of Hachiro and Hatsu Terayama. When Terayama was nine, his mother moved to Kyūshū to work at an American military base, while he himself went to live with relatives in the city of Misawa, also in Aomori. Terayama lived through the Aomori air raids that killed more than 30,000 people. His father died at the end of the Pacific War in Indonesia in September 1945. Terayama entered Aomori High School in 1951 and, in 1954, he enrolled in Waseda University's Facu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Minoru Betsuyaku
was one of Japan's most prominent postwar playwrights, novelists, and essayists, associated with the Angura ("underground") theater movement in Japan. He won a name for himself as a writer in the "nonsense" genre and helped lay the foundations of the Japanese "theater of the absurd." His works focused on the aftermath of the war and especially the nuclear holocaust. Early life Minoru Betsuyaku was born in the Japanese colony of Manchuria in 1937. Betsuyaku's early years were difficult because in addition to experiencing severe deprivation during World War II, his father also died. In July 1946, a year after the sudden Soviet invasion of Manchuria, his mother succeeded in repatriating by ship with her children. The family spent two years in Kōchi, Kōchi, Kōchi, his father's hometown, before moving to Shimizu, Shizuoka, where his mother's family lived. Betsuyaku's family then moved to Nagano, Nagano, Nagano, where he finished high school. At this time Betsuyaku hoped to become ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tenjō Sajiki
, was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama and whose members include Kohei Ando, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. It was led by Shūji Terayama and active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese ''Angura'' ("underground art, underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, Japanese folklore, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque erotic art, eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo. The name is from :ja:天井桟敷の人々, 天井桟敷の人々, the Japanese title of the film ''Children of Paradise''. Stage productions (arranged by the year of premiere performance) 1967 * The Hunchback o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Black Tent Theater
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''Psychologie de la couleur – effets et symboliques'', pp. 105–26. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus the Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates. Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings. It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th century onward, the rise of illusionism in staging practices, which culminated in the realism (theatre), realism and naturalism (theatre), naturalism of the Nineteenth-century theatre, theatre of the 19th century, led to the development of the fourth wall concept. The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium, proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, in what is known as a Box set (theatre), box set, the fourth of them would run along the line (technically called the proscenium) dividing the room from the auditorium. The ''fourth wall'', though, is a theatrical convention, rather than of set design. The actors ignore the audience, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Situation Theater
Situation and its derivations may refer to: Situation Common uses *A concept similar to scenario, relating to a position (location) or a set of circumstances. *A job People * The Situation (TV personality), nickname of American reality TV personality Michael Sorrentino Arts, entertainment, and media Film * ''The Situation'' (film), a 2006 film Music * ''Situation'' (album), a 2007 album by Canadian musician Buck 65 * ''Situation'' (song), a 1982 song by British new wave band Yazoo *"Situation", a 2024 song by A Little Sound; an interpolation of the 2000 Sugababes single " Overload" * "Situation", a song by Godsmack from their eponymous album * "The Situation", a song by The Black Eyed Peas from the album ''The Beginning'' Television *Situation comedy, abbreviated sitcom, a type of television show * ''The Situation'', the former name of the MSNBC show ''Tucker'' Other uses * ''Situation'' (Sartre), a concept by Jean-Paul Sartre * Rhetorical situation, the context of a rhetoric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
