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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 26, 2014
Chasing a Phantom of success
Based on "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra," a 1911 novel by the French author of detective fiction, Gaston Leroux, and transformed into a musical composed, co-written and produced by Englishman Andrew Lloyd Webber (now Baron Lloyd-Webber), "The Phantom of the Opera" was first produced in London in 1986 and went...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 12, 2014
Super Kabuki 'spells fun'
Just like the many native English-speakers who have difficulty understanding the language and classical references in the works of William Shakespeare, so Japanese people generally feel a sense of distance from kabuki, as though it were a foreign language.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2014
NNTT debut peers behind the masks of 'Condemned' Sartre family
Until Japan was opened to the West in the mid-19th century, its theater culture mainly comprised traditional forms such as kabuki, comic kyōgen, bunraku (puppet theater) and noh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 12, 2014
Kushida's 'Flapper' comes roaring back
"Young people these days won't be too familiar with the term the Roaring Twenties, but the 1920s still hold interest as a period. It was a time of changing values, not only in the United States, but in Europe: Dadaism, Cubism, Expressionism and other non-mainstream arts were blossoming. All over the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 22, 2014
The Onodera enigma
The name of the late great Pina Bausch's acclaimed Tanztheater in the German city of Wuppertal may translate as "Dancetheater," but its works often owe more to abstract emotional action and snatched dialogue than to dance. Over in London, meanwhile, Simon McBurney's Complicite company has long been at...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013
One year on from arts world 'disaster'
It's Oct. 27 and the setting sun fades to darkness. A long line of people begins to form around Tsukiji Honganji Temple next to the world-famous fish market in central Tokyo. The scene recalls what happened there last year on Dec. 27, the funeral of Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII who passed away in the city...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 27, 2013
Back to Back Theatre reveals the elephant in the room
Festival/Tokyo 13, this year's edition of the annual stage-arts festival, started Nov. 9. A unique feature of the festival's program is its many presentations that encourage audience participation, be it leading them around the streets following a certain theme, or guiding them via social networking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 27, 2013
Kichiemon Nakamura II : For the love of 'Chushingura'
As December draws near, the streets are decorated with Christmas ornaments and in Japan, concerts of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are held all over the nation. In addition to these Western-inspired traditions, there is a made-in-Japan December tradition that has been held since the 18th century and is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 6, 2013
Wrestling with Verdi's 'foul truth'
Women wearing flashy East-meets-West dresses and men in dark suits frolic drunkenly in a hotel lounge. Behind them can be seen the ends of the hallways for each floor of guest rooms. Couples slip away from the group from time to time, disappear down a hallway and into a room. The whole set is a cylindrical...

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?