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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
May 28, 2014
Talking Pinter with Leveaux; an 'authorized' interaction
When we met last weekend, the world-renowned English theater director David Leveaux was relaxing with a cigarette "in the lovely sunshine" outside a rehearsal studio by Tokyo Bay. He was there for an intensive afternoon's work with the three Japanese actors who form the cast of his upcoming production...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 21, 2014
Shirai triumphs with 'The Tempest'
"I'd like 'The Tempest' I am creating to be on the smallest scale ever, but as it's a very spacious stage at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, it won't have the most compact set. Nonetheless, I will try to present it as stories from within the confines of one man's memory."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 14, 2014
'The Big Fellah' IRA drama entertains as it also elucidates
Written by English playwright Richard Bean, and premiered in London in 2010, "The Big Fellah" spans 30 years in the lives of U.S. supporters of the Irish Republican Army as that movement fought to sever Northern Ireland's ties to the United Kingdom and unify the island of Ireland.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 7, 2014
Pioneering woman leads London's Royal Court Theatre into new realms
Since she took a first degree in drama at Manchester University, then a master's in directing after she realized she wasn't cut out to be an actress, Vicky Featherstone — the first female artistic director of London's hugely prestigious Royal Court Theatre in the heart of upper-crust Chelsea — has...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 30, 2014
TACT promises a globe-trotting Golden Week glow for all ages
"Baaa, baaa, ba-aaa" — many Tokyoites sheepishly making their way from JR Ikebukuro Station to their workplaces or the shops stopped in their tracks when they heard a strange bleating coming from the open-plan plaza basement of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre by West Gate Park in this seriously nonrural...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 16, 2014
Arts Council Tokyo sets its sights high
"For decades, many people involved in the arts — including producers, creators, administrators and academics — were pointing to the need for an overall arts-policy body in Tokyo, and finally Arts Council Tokyo came into being in November 2012," its program director, Yuko Ishiwata, noted with some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 9, 2014
Morticia's odd clan spell laughs with a local bent
If the Kennedys could be said to be American royalty, then the famed Addams family would surely be satirical pretenders to their antithesis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 2, 2014
Obsessions bared over a dead dog in the night
"It's f-cking amazing! I don't know what else to say. I'm really happy and really moved and I'm so humble about that."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 26, 2014
A torturer speaks — about the pain and pleasures of Pinter
"Some years ago at Black Stripe Theatre in Tokyo, we did a reading of Harold Pinter's one-act play 'One for the Road,' and I have ever since wanted to put it on.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 19, 2014
Tohoku school's plays tell how it is
"We always start creating our next work by having a meeting with everyone involved in the drama club," high school teacher Michiko Ishii explained.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 5, 2014
Nomura's 'Don Quixote' enlists comedy to counter today's real foes
"Whenever I am creating a new play here at Setagaya Public Theatre, I aim for something that's as universal as all those kyōgen (traditional comic theater) or noh classics that are as vivid now as when they were first staged 600 years ago. If it isn't like that, it won't reach an international audience,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2014
ABT brings 'magical moments' to Japan
Last August, with summer sweltering the city, I met Yuriko Kajiya and Jared Matthews, two soloists from the New York-based American Ballet Theatre, one of the word's top-four classical companies along with the Royal Ballet in London, Paris Opera Ballet and the Bolshoi in Moscow.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2014
Young K-Ballet School dancers get set for the big time
The splendid news about two Japanese high school students' outstanding achievement swept around the world this month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 12, 2014
Double-take for a new one-woman 'Tinkerbell'
Life is hard for Marcello Magni. Not only is he directing a production separately starring famed actress Tomoko Mariya and upcoming talent Kae Okumura, but the work, in Japanese, is also his brand-new version of an early play by his great friend — and Japan's leading contemporary dramatist — Hideki...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 29, 2014
What's the worth of words?
By popular demand, Shizuoka Performing Arts Center is set to stage a revival of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," its sell-out 2011 production adapted by contemporary theater paragon Hideki Noda and directed by its own artistic diector, Satoshi Miyagi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 29, 2014
Twice as nice: 'The Full Monty' and Peeping Tom
"I love the original 'Full Monty' movie, and I think Robert Carlyle is brilliant as the central character — a loser who overcomes the odds against him. In fact it's his portrayal that inspired me to tackle the role as my live-acting debut — though now I regret agreeing to it because on stage there's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 22, 2014
Workshops for theater — and life
"When I worked in an office, I was always nervous and I tensed up a lot just trying to behave correctly. But since coming to these workshops, I often feel like communicating with others spontaneously, of my own free will."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 15, 2014
'Kaz' Kumagai brings tip-top tap to town
"Anyone can enjoy being be a tap dancer in their daily life; all you have to do is casually make a rhythm with your feet when you're walking down the street," Japan's leading exponent of the art, Kazunori Kumagai, insists — seemingly oblivious to the gulf between him and most of the rest of clod-hopping...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 8, 2014
Jo Kanamori talks dance in Japan
A15-minute drive from Niigata Station, just across the mighty Shinano River pouring into the sea from the Northern Alps, a massive oval-shaped hall sits amid rich green parkland. This is Niigata City Performing Arts Center, aka Ryutopia — the nation's only public theater with a resident dance company....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2013
Top billings of 2013
Although all Japan's 50 reactors have been shut down since September, cleaning up in the wake of the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is making very slow progress and tens of thousands of people still live in temporary accommodation or are internally displaced. In addition,...
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.
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.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
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.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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