- Lecture Performance
- Online participation
The intersecting history of a once-sacred place for performance art.
Tomoko Sato is an artist reorganizing vast amounts of research on land and history into new narratives, and pioneering techniques of reimagining their telling in lecture performances. Confluences of multiple (hi)stories, her lectures act as the materialization of potential alternative fictions via the artist’s voice and body.
For two consecutive years in 2021 and 2022, Sato was commissioned by Theater Commons Tokyo to conduct field research in the Minato Ward area, the thriving center of Japan’s modern history. Even today, its city landscape is undergoing drastic changes due to redevelopment. In order to confront this excess, Sato has been tracing her research results on her own body for several years, using Taro Okamoto’s 1965 urban treatise Obake Tokyo (Ghost Tokyo) as a departure point for exploration. In this third installment, she creates a lecture performance that invokes the history of the Sogetsu Art Center (1958-71), where numerous legendary performances by the likes of Yoko Ono and John Cage took place in the 1960s. How can ghostly things from the past be revived in the modern city through Sato’s physical body, which serves as performer and narrator?
Profile
Tomoko Sato
Born in Nagano in 1990. Received her M.F.A. in Film and New Media from Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts. Sato expresses with “narrative,” mainly in her lecture-performance which is her main activity. Her recent works include “TWO PRIVATE ROOMS – A Circle of Reading” (Collaboration with Natsumi Aoyagi, 2020–), Participation in 14th Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2020) and “Public production vol.2 Tomoko Sato White fox, Antigone, Centaurus” (Nagano Prefectural Art Museum, 2022). Since 2021, she has been working on “Index for Obake Tokyo,” a field work project based at Theater Commons Tokyo.
http://tomokosato.info/
Dates
March 2nd [Thu] /19:00
March 3rd [Fri] /19:00
March 4th [Sat] /14:00/19:00
March 5th [Sun] /15:00
Performance times
Approx. 70 min.
Venue
Goethe-Institut Tokyo, Hall
7-5-56 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052
How to participate
In-person participation | Booking essential. Show general admission pass on entry.
Online participation | Please access the program via the link on the dedicated page sent upon purchase of your pass.
Language
Japanese
Credit
Concept and Direction | Tomoko Sato
Sogetsu Ikebana Lecturer | Miharu Akiyama
Support | Sogetsu Foundation
Venue Support | Goethe-Institut Tokyo
Related programs
“Index for Obake Tokyo: Introduction” and “Index for Obake Tokyo: Chapter 1” can be viewed with the purchase of the Commons Pass or Online Pass.
Screening
Venue |
Goethe-Institut Tokyo, Hall
Dates |
March 3rd [Fri]
14:00–15:00 “Index for Obake Tokyo: Introduction”
15:15–16:30 “Index for Obake Tokyo: Chapter 1”
March 5th [Sun]
10:00–11:00 “Index for Obake Tokyo: Introduction”
11:15–12:30 “Index for Obake Tokyo: Chapter 1”
How to participate |
No reservation is required. Show general admission pass on entry.
Online streaming
Streaming period | February 23rd [Thu]–March 31st [Fri]
How to participate |
Please access the program via the link on the dedicated page sent upon purchase of your pass.