Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2010

photographs Courtesy of TPAM

At heart, the Tokyo Performing Arts Market is what its name suggests: an industry convention that gives performers and artists a chance to meet, mingle and, hopefully, sign contracts with venues and promoters.
But for layfolk, TPAM offers a bounty of performances in the form of its TPAM Showcase and International Showcase. The former is open to just about anyone, while the latter is a focused series featuring domestic companies selected by local experts as well as foreign groups recommended by overseas partners. Taken together, the showcases offer such a surfeit of intriguing dance, theater, music and all manner of performance that the only problem is deciding where to begin.

If one has to pick a starting point though, the Dewandaru Dance Company’s Hallucination is an appealing choice. A solo piece featuring dancer Rianto, it’s inspired by Shoko Tendo’s book Yakuza Moon, in which the author recounts her upbringing as the daughter of a Japanese gangster.

Also of interest will be Kakuya Ohashi’s re-envisioning of Stravinksky’s masterpiece The Rite of Spring. After bringing meta-dance to Tokyo with his Clarity trilogy, Ohashi now transposes the first decade of the 21st century, which was marked by a wave of globalization, onto the early 20th century, a time when the world was rushing into WWI.

On the theater front, noted young playwright Shu Matsui follows up last year’s examination of discrimination, That Man’s World, with Hakobune (Ark). The piece is inspired by the recent revival of interest in the Marxist polemic Kanikosen (“The Crab Cannery Ship”), a 1929 novel about the exploitation of blue-collar workers that is back on bestseller lists in the wake of the economic crisis.

The International Showcase includes worthy Japanese performers like veteran director Norimizu Ameya, whose work tackles such themes as blood transfusions, artificial insemination and infectious disease. But it is perhaps the overseas visitors who will be of most interest to audiences, given that all of them are making their Japan debut.

From Quebec comes the Cas Public company, whose mission is to bring contemporary dance to young audiences. Founded by Helene Blackburn in 1989, the troupe scored a big success with a reworking of the Bluebeard fairy tale at the Paris Opera in 2006, which was widely acclaimed for its appeal to both children and adults.

Sumatra’s Nan Jombang Dance Company was established in 1983 by the choreographer Ery Mefri. The troupe, which includes members of Mefri’s family, builds a minimalist contemporary dance form from the vocabulary of Indonesian traditional dance, and has performed at important venues such as the American Dance Festival.

From the UK, Duncan Speakman brings his Subtlemob series to the streets of Ikebukuro. The free shows will “explore new relationships with society and the audience through such schemes as utilization of digital technologies or active involvement of the viewers.”

Producer Hiromi Maruoka says that while TPAM’s bilingual performances and seminars have helped to internationalize the thinking of Japanese performers, there is still a long way to go.

“In terms of contents and expression, I feel that it has been difficult for artists to form ideas because of the lack of ideas in Japanese society,” she states. “The flood of performing arts without ideas is unhealthy, but in a sense, the fact that it reflects the social situation can be said to be healthy.”

She adds that there is an upside to the small audiences for the domestic scene. “In terms of the economy, the fact that Japanese contemporary performing arts can raise only a few professionals is unhealthy, but… it can also be said that the severe situation has been stimulating the emergence of original and unique forms of art.”

Tokyo Performing Arts Market
Major event to promote both national and international artists, featuring theater, dance and music. Mar 1-4, various times, ¥3,000 (before Feb 15, One Day Pass)/¥4,000 (after Feb 16, One Day Pass)/¥8,000 (before Feb 15, Visitor’s Pass)/¥10,000 (after Feb 16, Visitor’s Pass). TPAM Showcase: Feb 27-Mar 5, ¥1,000-¥3,900 per show. Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, Ikebukuro. Tel: 03-5724-4660. www.tpam.or.jp/2010/e-index.html