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November 22, 2024
 

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Nobuko Tanaka

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Nobuko Tanaka
Nobuko Tanaka is a stage writer who has regularly contributed contemporary theater and dance articles to The Japan Times since 2001. She also writes for several Japanese and overseas magazines and web sites. As a promoter, she takes Japanese artists to foreign theater festivals.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 10, 2010
Class of 2010: Japan's playwrights head west
Japan's young dramatists are increasingly shrugging off their medium's long-standing, self-imposed national isolation and are setting sail in search of new audiences, and critical praise, overseas.
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 21, 2010
'Evacuate' to whole new worlds
In the foyers of theaters in Tokyo's new "happening" hub of Ikebukuro — where the provocative Festival/Tokyo (F/T) drama event is running through November — odd exchanges can often be overheard.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2010
Theater with a hint of human truth
Yumi Suzuki co-founded the Jitensha Kinqureat theater company with friends at Nihon Joshi Daigaku (Japan Women's University) in 1982, and it was not long before the Tokyo troupe gained a prominent reputation and a keen following for its true-to-life plays in colloquial language about the lives of young...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 5, 2010
Canadian director examines 'home' from an expat view
Though best known as a director of Quebec-based circus Cirque du Soleil, 52-year-old Robert Lepage is also one of Canada's most distinguished dramatists.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 22, 2010
Is Tokyo staging the next major theater festival?
Festival/Tokyo, which launched last year with two sets of events in spring and autumn, is in a bid to join the ranks of the world's top-flight theater festivals — such as Edinburgh's annual spectacular in Scotland, Avignon's in the South of France and Adelaide's in South Australia. The question is,...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 22, 2010
Kyoto experiments with its cultural image
The inaugural Kyoto Experiment aims to present a taste of modernity in Japan's old capital, rather than the traditional stuff everyone already knows.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 17, 2010
Cultural gems host theater's treasures
There are currently 14 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Japan, ranging from the pristine Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido's north to Okinawa's Ryukyu castles.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 3, 2010
Double dose of dancing hits Saitama
A double bill of cutting-edge dance awaits fans at the Saitama Arts Theater this weekend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 3, 2010
From 'Dawn of the Dead' to the live-and-kicking golden 'oldies'
Shu Matsui's innocent smile is familiar. He's always beaming on TV ads, whether he's plugging a washing softener, playing a gentle new father or promoting mobile phones in the guise of a young doctor. But if you were to see any production by Sample, the theater company Matsui founded in 2007, you'd be...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 27, 2010
Orchestra taps dancer Kumagai for cross-genre concert
Thirty-three-year-old Kazunori Kumagai started tap dancing when he was 15. Four years later, he went by himself to New York to attend special training for a role in "Noise/Funk," a Broadway show that traced black history in the United States through tap, hip-hop and funk rhythms. His Broadway dream was...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 15, 2010
Can robots be chips off the Bard's block?
Actors traditionally wish each other good luck before they go on stage by saying, "Break a leg!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2010
With only a few new works a year, Ishinha is all about quality theater
Among all of Japan's many theater companies, the innovative Osaka- based Ishinha (Reformers), founded in 1970 by its current director Yukichi Matsumoto, has stood out consistently. While most companies eye their bottom line, pack their schedules with different productions and move to Tokyo to maximize...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2010
Reflections of Chekhov's Russia in modern-day Japan
"People compare me with Bertolt Brecht, and I am glad to hear that — but why won't anyone call me Anton Inoue?"
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 2, 2010
Condors hope to replicate event's magic
West Gate Park outside the Metropolitan Exit of Ikebukuro Station is a small oasis amid the hurly-burly of that northern Tokyo hub.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 18, 2010
Lack of funds fail to stop Tokyo's young theater brigade
As a promising playwright, director and actor, 31-year-old Junichi Hirota highlights a cruel fact running through Japan's theater world — namely that once technicians such as lighting engineers, sound people and set-builders are paid from box-office profits, there's often little or nothing left for...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 6, 2010
Dancing for joy in Japan
As I sipped my vin rouge last week during an interval in "The Sleeping Beauty," K-Ballet's latest Tokyo production, a woman at the next table said to her companion: "I can't believe that evil fairy was a man! I just naturally thought it was a woman dancing that role."
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 4, 2010
Shizuoka festival takes the stage
The annual Spring Arts Festival Shizuoka is keenly anticipated by theater lovers across Japan thanks to its high quality of program selection.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 28, 2010
'Gas' event asks big questions
Playwright Jason Maghanoy burst to prominence in the Canadian theater world in 2007 with his maiden offering, "Gas," about the Iraq War, which questioned the meaning of democracy and freedom in the instant-reaction, life-and-death conditions of live-fire conflict.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 21, 2010
Your chance to star with two stage legends
Two titans of Japanese theater, contemporary dramatist Hideki Noda (who has also triumphed three times directing kabuki plays at its Kabukiza mecca) and star kabuki actor Kanzaburo Nakamura, will team up on stage at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in Ikebukuro from Sept. 5-28 to perform a new play by Noda...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 21, 2010
Directing the flow of theatrical creativity
Any time you go to a theater in Japan you are sure to be handed several colorful flyers for other shows — and among them you will almost certainly find the face of Tetsuya Chiba. At 46, and the father of three boys, Chiba is one of the country's most popular and best-known stage actors, known as much...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

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