- Tour Performance
Following the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Nobel Prize laureate Elfriede Jelinek presented Kein Licht. in March 2012. Six months later, Akira Takayama-led Port B performed the play as a tour performance around Shimbashi Station.
Now, exactly ten years after the earthquake and nine years after its premiere, this tour performance will be revived in a bold restaging. The setting is the Shimbashi area, a business district that developed alongside TEPCO and other markers of Japan’s rapid economic growth. The New Shimbashi Building, which serves as the tour’s starting point, opened in 1971, the same year as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary in March 2021. Aided by globally-dispersed news photos from the Fukushima disaster, each audience member will individually visit places where Shimbashi and Fukushima intersect and listen to voices on the radio. How will Jelinek’s words, read aloud by high school girls from Fukushima a decade ago, resonate with a Tokyo thrown into limbo by the coronavirus crisis?
Profile
Akira Takayama
Akira Takayama formed the creative collective Port B in 2002. He produces a wide range of artworks and projects that include tour-style performances, video installations, social experiments, discussions, and sightseeing tours. In 2013, he founded Port Urban Research Center, which applies theatrical methods to tourism, urban planning, social practices, and media development, among other activities.
Dates
March 4th [Thu]-11th [Thu]
14:00*/14:30*/15:00/15:30/16:00/16:30/
17:00/17:30
*Additional Performance
Days off | March 7th [Sun]
Performance times
Estimated tour duration: approx. 120 min.
Venue
New Shimbashi Building and around Shimbashi Station
2-16-1 Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0004
How to Participate
Booking essential. Show general admission pass on entry.
– This is an experiential artwork. Audience members will depart one person at a time to visit multiple locations.
– Participants will depart every few minutes at the time of their reservation on a first come, first served basis.
Language
Japanese
Credit
Concept and Direction | Akira Takayama
Text | Elfriede Jelinek
Translation | Tatsuki Hayashi
Voice Cast | Iwaki Sogo High School Theatre Club (2012)
Mana Aoki, Momo Iijima, Mina Okizaki, Maya Katayose, Ayane Kamata, Chieri Sakurai, Yuka Suzuki, Ryo Tanaka, Kazuki Chiro, Hiroe Nitsuma, Ai Nishida, Maho Harada, Mei Matsumoto, Nanami Yashiro, Mai Watanabe, Wakana Watabe
Photography Supervision (Premiere, 2012) | Shinichi Tsuchiya
Design | Kota Abe
Assistant Direction, Production Management | Saki Tanaka
Production Assistant | Yurie Nakajima
Co-operation | New Shimbashi Building Shops Association, New Shimbashi Building Management Association, Minato City, Michiko Ishii, Iwaki Sogo High School (Fukushima)
Production (Premiere, 2012) | Festival/Tokyo, Port B