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November 21, 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
Jul 3, 2002
A play that's as Japanese as . . . cherry pie
Following "The Seagull," "The Sneeze," "Three Sisters" and "Uncle Vanya," "The Cherry Orchard" is the final play in a series titled "Chekhov: The Work of the Soul" staged by the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 2002
Master of all but his destiny
No dozing in the dark for members of the audience at Yukio Ninagawa's new production of "Oedipus Rex," because the director has assigned us a role, too -- the public gallery of this artistic Theban court.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 5, 2002
. . . but soccer hosts are a dream team on stage
As in soccer, so on stage. Japan-Korea collaboration (or is it Korea-Japan collaboration?) is happening all over.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 29, 2002
Star's role derails Streetcar classic
Demons inhabit the live-performance stage. Nobody can judge the success of a production until after the curtain has risen and fallen. This is what gives drama -- and musical and dance performances -- their peculiar zest. And when the director of a production is a titan of the international theater world,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 22, 2002
The goodness of small things
The stage of "Masurca Fogo" represents choreographer Pina Bausch's aesthetic world. And what a wide world it is: The 22 dancers are drawn from far and wide, and the music ranges from Brazilian samba and Portuguese fado, to k.d. lang and Duke Ellington.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 8, 2002
Remembering times passed
Outside it was a cold and rainy spring day in Tokyo's residential Bunkyo-ku. Inside the 300-seater Sanbyakunin Gekijo theater, though, excitement filled the air as people milled around trying to get hold of standby tickets for Gekidan Subaru's latest production, "Philip's Reason."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 17, 2002
Choreographer dances to a different tune
Choreographer Matthew Bourne, leader of his London-based Adventures in Motion Pictures company, shot to fame when his gay version of "Swan Lake" took the West End and Broadway by storm after being premiered at London's Sadler's Wells theater in 1995.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 10, 2002
Total eclipse of the art
In a residential area close to the bright lights and buzz of Shibuya, a fascinating theatrical experiment is taking place at the Agora Theater in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 3, 2002
Dance artist of his floating world
As a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet from 1993 to 1998, Tetsuya Kumakawa was a sensation on stage at Covent Garden. London's discerning audiences thrilled to the incomparable ability of this boyish young man, just 21 when he became the first Japanese male dancer to take center stage with the company....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 27, 2002
Humans' distance laid bare in two close-ups on 'intimacy'
Theater Project Tokyo's current, compelling double bill, "TPT Futures 2002," grapples head-on with how, as time and circumstances change, people deal with the eternally fraught business of maintaining or severing their intimate ties with others.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002
Forsooth, 'tis surely no great Shakes
"Shakespeare shakes you. The spear of his imagination shakes you, and the story shakes you," said Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, in an interview for The Japan Times last October.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2002
Comedy that doesn't always translate
After decades of playing Shakespeare "straight," Japanese directors and actors are now taking stagings of his works to a different level. A move away from pure "translation drama" toward an approach rooted in Japanese experience has been the exciting hallmark of productions such as Hideki Noda's "Much...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 13, 2002
Romance at the edge of reason
"I always believed it was taboo to portray madness on stage, and I never dared to do it before," Hideki Noda writes in the program notes to "Urikotoba (Fighting talk/Words for sale)," his latest enterprise as writer/director, now playing at Spiral Hall in Tokyo's Aoyama district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 30, 2002
On the outside, but looking in
The Agora Theater is tucked away near Komaba Todaimae Station, just five minutes from the hurly-burly of Shibuya. It was here that I saw "Boken Oh (Kings of the Road)" performed by Seinen Dan, a youth theater-group led by Oriza Hirata, 39, who wrote and directed the play.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 16, 2002
A humorous view of history from the other side of the lens
At last, I got to see a play by Koki Mitani, whose comedy dramas are just about the most difficult to get tickets for nowadays. This is not only because of the critical ovations that greet his productions, but also because of the star status of Mitani himself.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 9, 2002
Tokyo Kandenchi putting a little spark back into the Bard
For my first theater outing of 2002, I went to see "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" by Tokyo Kandenchi (Tokyo Dry Battery). In this -- their 25th anniversary performance, but their first-ever brush with the Bard of Avon -- the company made no pretense of striving to scale great literary heights, but instead...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 12, 2001
Going full circle for sex and romance
Love is in the air at the Benisan Pit theater in Tokyo's Koto Ward. There, downtown by the Sumida River, Theatre Project Tokyo is staging its latest production, "The Blue Room," based on Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler's "Reigen."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 12, 2001
Celebrating 'doing the rounds'
David Leveaux, the English director of "The Blue Room," has been working regularly in Japan since 1993. In these highlights from a lengthy discussion last week, TPT's artistic director speaks about his work here, Japanese audiences . . . and the message of "The Blue Room."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2001
Hot rock for Genghis Khan
"I want to create a wadaiko dance collaboration with Michael Jackson."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 14, 2001
Revitalized kyogen to a crossroads
With the new century, it seems that the world of traditional Japanese theater has taken a long, hard look at itself and is seeking new means of expression.
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
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.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
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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