- Participatory performance
A resonant and transmissive meditation that begins from accepting irreconcilable differences.
There are pleasures to be found in the interpreter’s ways of “listening”—a listening that is by no means confined to the physical ear. Tuning in to the vibrations of the other, the interpreter “listens” and plays their body like an instrument in order to convey these frequencies to yet another. Here, suddenly, we may find ourselves connected to a world we could never reach alone. Even if interpretation were to disappear as a profession, the ecstacy of “listening” as a medium of communication would surely remain open to us.
As a composer and interpreter, Tomoko Momiyama has long sought to practice the decolonization of “listening.” In this project, she teams up with Signed Music performer and Deaf poet Sasa-Marie to reinterpret and transmute the Sonic Meditations of Pauline Oliveros, a composer who reclaimed the power of “listening” as a queer activist practice in 1970s USA. Together they enact a ritual to share the pleasures of an ethical and aesthetic “listening” that transcends our physical senses of hearing and sight.
Profile
Tomoko Momiyama
Co-Director of Art Translators Collective. Born in Fukui and shaped in New York and California, Tomoko works internationally as a composer, interpreter, and dramaturg.
Through dialogue and collaboration with marginalized voices, she creates experiences of critical listening that examine and explore our relationships with Others. Working fluidly across media and disciplines, she presents site-specific installations and performances at art festivals and cultural institutions around the world. Recent commissions include Listening Within the Opacities of Our Times and Places (Contemporary Art Tasmania, 2022–) and Touching the Depths of the Earth with One Note (San Francisco International Art Festival, 2019). Tomoko is the director of Minori-majorite Travel and a founding board member of the Japan Association of Composers for Sumo Hearing Arts. www.tomokomomiyama.com
Sasa-Marie
DEAF Poet / Sign Poet / MUSICA Artist–Researcher. Sasa-Marie organizes spatial poetry readings that engage all five senses. In April 2023, she co-founded mina_te_mari, an organization dedicated to promoting and advocating Deaf artistic expression from Deaf perspectives, together with DEAF Actor Mary Yumiko KAWAI. She works as a Deaf navigator for the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Relaxed Performances, and as a Deaf facilitator for museum accessibility and viewing support programs. Sasa-Marie is currently a doctoral candidate (PhD) at the Graduate School of Design, Kyushu University. https://lit.link/sasamarie
Dates
February 27th [Fri] 17:00 *1-Day Ticket
March 7th [Sat] 11:00 *1-Day Ticket / With English interpretation
March 8th [Sun] 15:30 *1-Day Ticket / 19:00 *1-Day Ticket
Performance times
Approx. 90 min. (Approx. 120 min. for the performance on 3/7 with English interpretation)
Venue
5F SHIBAURA HOUSE
3-15-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Ticket
Single Ticket
Adults | 3,000 yen
Students | 2,000 yen
*Booking essential, non-reserved seat
“The Death of Translation” 1-Day Ticket
Adults | 5,000 yen
Students | 3,000 yen
*Booking essential, non-reserved seat
*This ticket is valid for all “The Death of Translation” performance programs on a single day:
2/27 [Fri] Tomoko Momiyama×Sasa-Marie 17:00 / Akihito Hirano×Chiharu Shinoda 19:00
3/7 [Sat] Tomoko Momiyama×Sasa-Marie 11:00 / Kanoko Tamura×Mayunkiki 13:30 / Lillian Canright 17:00
3/8 [Sun] Lillian Canright 11:00 / Kanoko Tamura×Mayunkiki 13:30 / Tomoko Momiyama×Sasa-Marie 15:30 or 19:00
*Ticket holders for the paid programs of Theater Commons Tokyo ’26 (excluding the Commons Forum) are eligible to attend the “ATC Station” for free.
Please note
*This performance is participatory. Audience members may be invited to move their bodies or take part in certain performative actions. Please participate only to the extent that feels comfortable for you.
*Recommended age: 13 and up. (For children under 12, please contact us in advance.)
Language
Japanese Sign Language & Japanese (Japanese Sign Language interpretation is provided. English consecutive interpretation is also available at the performance on March 7 at 11:00)
Accessibility
Subtitles | None
Audio guide | None
Additional accessibility | Japanese Sign Language interpretation
English consecutive interpretation (for the performance on March 7 at 11:00)
Written communication support available at reception
Wheelchair-accessible seating available
Credit
Concept, composition, direction | Tomoko Momiyama
Signed Music dramaturg | Sasa-Marie
Performance | The Opacities’ Ensemble (Eriko Amo, Kanako Iwanaka, JohnJ a.k.a. Madame Bonjour JohnJ, Yuko Kato, Yumiko Mary KAWAI, Kuniy, Tomoko Momiyama,Tamami Okajima, Sasa-Marie, Yuko Setoguchi)
Cooperation | PARADISE AIR
Related program
Art Translators Collective (ATC) “The Death of Translation”
ATC: Kanoko Tamura×Mayunkiki “We Still Could”
ATC: Akihito Hirano×Chiharu Shinoda “This is Not the End of Human Translation”
ATC: Lillian Canright “ What are we doing where are we going”
ATC: Haruka Ueda/Keith Spencer/Eriko Amou, Yuki Harukawa and more | ATC Station: “The Last Gig—of a Japanese Translator Who Feels at Home in English” / “Borderland”