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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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 18, 2007
A film director in the theater
Daisuke Tengan is an acclaimed filmmaker, but search for him on the Internet and the first thing you'll discover is that he's the son of director Shohei Imamura, who won the Palme d' Or at the Cannes Film Festival for "Narayamabushiko" in 1983 and "Unagi" in 1997.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 12, 2007
9/11 through Japan's eyes
In the Japanese theater world, Rinkogun merits a special mention for its concern for socio-political issues and its focus on increasing audiences' awareness rather than merely eliciting laughter or tears as many other companies are content to do.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 7, 2007
Nahoko Yamazaki: Off-stage woman stars in men's theater world
Just as in the realm of politics, in the arts world — and here, particularly regarding the performing arts — different countries adopt different policies depending on their historical and economic circumstances.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 5, 2007
Greek tragedy raises 3,000-year-old questions
Here's a three-act play with a difference or three — or four, or more. For starters, "Performing Women" comprises three standalone plays, each about a different Ancient Greek tragic heroine, each under a different director and each linked not just by their common theme but also by a fourth director's...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 28, 2007
TIP grabs 'The Elephant Man' by the tusks
Tokyo International Players is an English-language theater troupe run by volunteers that evolved from the Tokyo Dramatic and Musical Association, formed at the Imperial Hotel on Feb. 10, 1896.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 27, 2007
Why do performing arts have a 'dead-end feeling' in Japan?
Tarahumara is a mysterious area deep in Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains. Dancer Hiroshi Koike chose the enigmatic name for the dance-drama company he founded in 1982 because he aimed to create beautiful performances that transcend genre.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 21, 2007
Don Quixote, Korean style
This "Man of La Mancha" has a lot to do with a man from South Korea: Cho Seung Woo, the film-star hero of such hits as "The Classic — Love Story" (2003) and "Marathon" (2005), and star of such musicals as "Rent" (2007), "Hedwig" (2006) and, most notably, "Jekyll and Hyde," whose massive success in...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 14, 2007
Concubines unite
In China, she is regarded as one of the four great beauties of world history; in Japan she is one of three similar icons — along with Cleopatra and the Heian Period poet Komachi Ono-no. Her name was Yang Guifei (719-756), and she was the favorite concubine of the emperor Xuanzong, revered not only...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 6, 2007
'Merchant' for modern times
One of the world's foremost directors of Shakespeare, one of Japan's most outstanding translators of the Bard and a star-studded Japanese cast have teamed up to bring "The Merchant of Venice" to Tokyo this month.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 24, 2007
Lesson in absurd comedy
Named in homage to the Romanian-born Absurdist playwright of the same name, the Eugene Ionesco Theater company will this month make its fourth visit to Japan to present Ionesco's dark comedy "Jugyo (The Lesson)."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 16, 2007
Flying high and free
On a sweltering summer day recently, members of the Condors dance troupe were pouring with sweat as they practiced for their upcoming national tour. Choreographer and lead dancer, Ryohei Kondo, was in the center of a circle of the dancers, who were voicing their opinions freely.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 10, 2007
Festival theater heats up Shibuya
Matsuri (festivals) in Japan are not only about fireworks, as the monthlong "Summer Summit 2007" drama event attests.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 27, 2007
'Human maggots in a glass'
Dance fans could be excused for, well, dancing in the streets thanks to the fancy footwork of Saitama Arts Theater in luring some of the world's best contemporary troupes to its stage made famous as the home base of international theater titan Yukio Ninagawa.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 13, 2007
Journeys of self-discovery
While many young Japanese go to Canada to study English and some retirees enjoy holidays there, the number of Canadian theater companies staging performances in Japan are few and far between.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 5, 2007
Drama and deconstruction
What goes around comes around, they say, and in the early 1980s, Japan's contemporary drama scene was transformed by a slew of small companies that were the artistic heirs of the previous generation's radical student politics. That brave new world of the so-called shogekijo (small-scale theater movement)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 28, 2007
Londoners in a Japanese 'Trance'
Two years ago, playwright Shoji Kokami, founder of The Third Stage company in Tokyo, started working with the cutting-edge Bush Theatre in West London on his 1993 play "Trance." One of the prime movers in the 1980s small-scale youth theater movement in Japan, the 48-year-old Kokami decided to approach...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 7, 2007
A midsummer bonanza
Many of the hottest tickets theatergoers are after this summer come courtesy of one person — English director John Caird.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 7, 2007
The cross-cultural theater connection
John Caird doesn't see his staging of three plays in Japan this summer as making a big splash that leaves ever-decreasing ripples that then fade away.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 31, 2007
Yukiko Motoya takes a satirical look at the 'Super No-Flat'
There's a new buzz in Japan's theaters these days — and she's called Yukiko Motoya. Hailing from Ishikawa Prefecture on the Sea of Japan, the 27-year-old founder of an eponymous Tokyo-based theater company has quickly become a new source of freshness both in the drama world and other cultural fields....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 27, 2007
Zing, laughter, fuss and froth
Theater director Sho Ryuzanji, 59, started his Rakujuku (loosely, "having-fun club") in 1997 with the specific intention to involve non-theater professionals over the age of 45 in drama. The company now comprises 14 members -- all women. For its 10th anniversary program, Ryuzanji's troupe will tread...
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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