Nobuko Tanaka - The Japan Times

November 25, 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 / Film

Apr 26, 2007

Japanese/Chinese production tackles history

In 2002, the FIFA World Cup of soccer hosted by Japan and South Korea boosted already flourishing cultural exchanges between the two countries in areas such as pop music, shopping and television dramas. The same year, the scriptwriter and director Oriza Hirata, who founded the Tokyo-based Seinendan Theater...

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Apr 6, 2007

Setagaya Public Theatre (SEPT), Japan's foremost municipal arts venue, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Mar 22, 2007

When Godot finally arrives

Minoru Betsuyaku wanted to be a painter, but his father died when he was 7, leaving him as the oldest of five sons. Everyone around him said that he would never be able to support his family as an artist, so he entered Tokyo's Waseda University, resolved instead to become a newspaper journalist.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Mar 9, 2007

Ethereal beings

Twenty years ago when he was in his mid-20s, Yukikazu Kano founded the Hanagumi Shibai Theater Company to start what he called "neokabuki." His idea was to bridge the gap between the traditional and contemporary theater fields in Japan.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Feb 22, 2007

Beirut dramatist seeks new strategy

Lebanese dramatist Rabih Mroue returns to Tokyo International Arts Festival this year with the world premiere of his new play, "How Nancy Wished that Everything was an April Fool's Joke," three years after making his TIF debut. It is a work that reflects the fluid situation of Lebanese society after...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Feb 22, 2007

Drama despite the Establishment

At last December's press conference heralding this year's Tokyo International Arts Festival, Artistic Director Sachio Ichimura was in a less than festive mood.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Feb 16, 2007

Enough to make a vampire drool

Belgian choreographer Jan Fabre's most controversial work, "Je Suis Sang (I am Blood)," will be performed for three stagings only in Japan at the Saitama Arts Center this weekend.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Jan 25, 2007

Dairakudakan dancers play with Josef Nadj

Speaking in Tokyo a year ago, Josef Nadj, one of the most respected choreographers in the contemporary dance world, said that for his next project in Japan he wanted to create something playful for the audiences in collaboration with Japanese dancers and Japanese culture. The 49-year-old Yugoslav-born...

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Jan 12, 2007

Iraqi play eschews straight acting

Next week, Tokyo audiences will have a rare chance to sample contemporary theater from Iraq, as one of the Middle East's most prominent directors, 56-year-old Salah Al-Kassab, presents his play "Dream in Baghdad," performed by five Iraqi actors. The play also tours Sendai and Sapporo.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Dec 28, 2006

Provocative plays in the quiet

Spending as much time as I do in theaters guarantees that I am treated to some brilliant productions, others that are dire, and plenty in between. However, ones truly astonishing and most "provocative" (to use a key word in drama criticism these days), are naturally not thick on the ground.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Dec 22, 2006

A bluebird for the kids, and a dark Cinderella

For this winter vacation season, theater company EN presents a new, original play for children, "Aoitori Kotori Nazenaze Aoi? (Bluebird, Why are you Blue?)," at Theater X in Ryogoku, continuing a tradition of appealing to young theatergoers since it began in 1981

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Dec 7, 2006

Golden oldies step out into the limelight

Sixty-three-year-old Masatake Takei careened around the stage without his trousers, trying to beat off the angry mob of obasan (old ladies) who had just stripped him to his underpants. The audience obviously loved the spectacle, roaring with delight. But what was the president of a Tokyo architectural...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Dec 7, 2006

'Old bunch' learn new tricks to bridge the generations

A way from the bustle of the Waseda University students just around the corner, a quite different demographic gathered in a rehearsal studio there to prepare for their world premiere in Tokyo's theater youth culture hub of Shimokitazawa.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Nov 30, 2006

Moving beyond nonsense

Born Kazumi Kobayashi in Tokyo, 43-year-old Keralino Sandroviich -- or Kera, as he is best known -- started his career with the techno band Uchoten (Rapture) which he formed in 1982 when he was a student at the Japan Academy of the Moving Image. Although he had planned to be a film director, when Uchoten...

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Nov 10, 2006

Politics at heart of two 'new' plays

American-born Australian and long-term Japan resident Roger Pulvers presents a double-bill of his plays in Japanese at Theater X in Tokyo's Sumida Ward from Nov. 15-18.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Nov 3, 2006

A cultural emblem

Written by Wesley Enoch, one of Australia's leading young director-writers, the world premiere of "Cookie's Table" will be staged with a Japanese cast in Tokyo from Nov. 8 by Rakutendan Theatre Company.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Oct 13, 2006

Dedicated to dance

A hundred years old this month and still an active dancer, "Kazuo Ohno Photo Exhibition" captures on film one of the most famous Japanese performing artists in history. The exhibition, comprising 100 images of Ohno taken by 42 photographers, runs Oct. 14-23 at Konica Minolta Plaza in Shinjuku, Tokyo....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Oct 12, 2006

A triple threat in contemporary dance

In recent years, the contemporary dance scene in Japan has grown both in audience size and in the diversity of high-quality, small dance companies. Thirty-one year-old Jo Kanamori, artistic director at the Niigata Ryutopia arts center, is widely considered a trigger for the movement. Kanamori's dance...

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP

Oct 1, 2006

Hisashi Inoue: Crusader with a pen

So wide-ranging are 71-year-old Hisashi Inoue's talents and activities that it is difficult to know which to focus on at the expense of others.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Sep 28, 2006

An Asian woman becomes aware

Thirty-one year-old playwright, director and actor Keishi Nagatsuka has been turning heads since he staged his first productions while still a student at Waseda University. In 1996 in Tokyo, he founded the Asagaya Spiders company, which has received glowing critical acclaim and regularly plays to full...

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