舞台芸術制作者オープンネットワーク（ON-PAM）Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ON-PAM)

While the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, Osaka World Expo in 2025 and many other large-scale events are coming up across Japan, where are the performing arts headed? As the Olympics are so close now, what kinds of practices can be role models for the future? Focusing on recent international collaborations in Asia and new moves of private organizations in Japan, we discuss creative practice beyond such existing frameworks as “theatre company” or “theatre venue” and environments that are needed for the future.

10:00 - 12:00

The Asian Women Performing Arts Collective (Ajokai), where women with various positions who are involved in the performing arts get together, and the Free Scene Network Japan, which has been working mainly with the owners of small private venues across Japan since 2017, have unique organizational schemes that pay attention to the different intentions and working environments of their diverse members and draw inspirations for creative cooperation from that. In this session, we discuss creative cooperation through dialogue on the possibility of a private intermediary organization with diverse members and participants, management that does not suppress its potential, and frictions and dilemmas that it involves.

Speakers: Shirotama Hitsujiya (Founding Member, Asian Women Performing Arts Collective [Ajokai] / Artistic Director, Yubiwa Hotel), Masashi Nomura (Founder, Free Scene Network Japan / Producer / Dramaturge)

13:00 - 15:00

We have invited directors, playwrights, dramaturgs and producers who work with international creatives in Asia, to discuss the achievements and challenges of working collaboratively from their various positions. What kind of process is necessary to overcome the walls of language, historical understanding, theatrical practices and creation philosophies? How can people from different backgrounds discover the necessity of creation through collaboration? We will be discussing the significance of international collaborations, what we can learn from past practices, and what we are leaving for the future.

Speakers: Alfian Sa’at (Resident Playwright, W!LD RICE), Shawn Chua (Dramaturg/Researcher), Junnosuke Tada (Director, Tokyo Deathlock), Akane Nakamura (Performing Arts Producer / CEO and Director, precog CO., LTD.)

Artistic Director of YUBIWA Hotel theater company, she is a director, playwright and performer. In addition to her works presented in theaters, she has been presented at national and international contemporary arts festivals and she has created site specific productions. Her theater pieces deal with dark themes and invisible boundaries, incorporating the perceptions and losses of people, places and things. She is a founding member of the Asian Women Performing Arts Collective (Ajokai) and was named one of the 100 Japanese Women Recognized by the World by Newsweek Japan. 

Theater producer and dramaturge. As the Program Officer of Okinawa Arts Council, he was involved in the establishment of a small theatre/atelier Mekaru Base in Naha City and the Free Scene Network Japan. He is currently Nagano prefecture’s cultural coordinator and a board member of the Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ON-PAM). He is enrolled in SEINENDAN and Komaba Agora Theater.

Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with W!LD RICE. In 2001, he won the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. He has been nominated 10 times for Best Original Script at the Life! Theatre Awards, winning for Landmarks (2005), Nadirah (2010), Kakak Kau Punya Laki (Your Sister's Husband, 2014) and Hotel (with Marcia Vanderstraaten, 2016). Alfian has also been awarded the Boh-Cameronian Award in Malaysia for Best Book and Lyrics for The Secret Life of Nora (2011) and for Best Original Script for Parah (Wounded, 2013). His plays have been performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Berlin.

Shawn’s research engages with embodied archives, uncanny personhoods and the participatory frameworks of play. He has presented his work at the Asian Dramaturg’s Network, The Substation, State of Motion, and Performance Studies international (PSi). In 2012, he was awarded the National Arts Council Scholarship and he holds an MA in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Waseda University. He currently teaches at LASALLE College of the Art, and serves on the Performance Studies international (PSi) Future Advisory Board. Shawn is a founding team member of Bras Basah Open, and is part of the group that runs soft/WALL/studs.

Born 1976. Director. Presides over Tokyo Deathlock. Artistic Director of Cultural Centre of Fujimi City. Program director of Asian Performing Arts Forum. Personally active in staging all kinds of works from classics to contemporary drama, dance, and director of a public theater department appointed in Japanese history. Also involved in many overseas co-productions, particularly with Korea and Southeast Asia. Received the 50th The Dong-A Theater Award in Korea in 2014—the first foreign winner.

Nakamura has produced numerous experimental performances since the early 2000s, working as a bridge in the international performing arts scene in over 70 cities and 30 countries. Co-director of "Spectacle in the Farm Nasu” (2009–2010), Performance Program Director for Kunisaki Peninsula Art Festival (2012–2014) and Joint Curator for Jejak-Tabi Exchange 2018. She also stayed in Bangkok as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow in 2016.