Tomohiro Maekawa
À la marge
© À la marge, Tomohiro Maekawa © Aki Tanaka ©
© À la marge, Tomohiro Maekawa © Aki Tanaka ©
© À la marge, Tomohiro Maekawa © Aki Tanaka ©
Text and staging, Tomohiro Maekawa
Featuring Junpei Yasui, Nobue Iketani, Shinya Hamada, Ryuji Mori, Soh Morishita, Sho Yakumaru, Ellie Toyota, Midori Shimizu, Ryohei Maki
Stage work assistant and general coordinator: Takumi Tanizawa
Lights, Kei Sato
Setting, Kenichi Toki
Music, Shuhei Kamimura
Sound, Takuhei Aoki
Costumes, Azusa Imamura
Make up and hairstyle, Naoko Nishikawa
Spatial installation, Naomi Shimotsukasa
Accessories, Asako Watanabe
Light manager, Yuriko Mizoguchi
Sound manager, Kozue Ogawa
Producer, Takahiro Nakajima (Ikiume)
Production manager, Atsuko Sakata
Tour manager, Miwa Monden
Produced by HB Ltd (Cie Ikiume)
Co-directed by the House of Japanese Culture in Paris; Festival d’Automne à Paris
With support from the Foundation for the Study of Japanese Language and Civilization, housed by Fondation de France, and Fondation franco-japonaise Sasakawa and the Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)
The Japanese artist, Tomohiro Maekawa’s piece focuses on the encounter between two characters confronted with supernatural phenomena. This metaphysical work, written during the pandemic, investigates society’s reaction in the face of inexplicable events.
Aged forty-eight years old, Tomohiro Maekawa has become one of the major figures in the Japanese theatre of today. Up until now, however, none of his works has ever been performed outside of his native Japan. A graduate in Western philosophy and strongly influenced by Buddhism, the artist has a passion for supernatural phenomena. À la marge brings to the stage the reunion of a man and a woman in a café. Over the course of their discussion, these former classmates notice that they have lived through strange experiences. In a perfectly orchestrated ballet, the nearby clients embody their loved ones and a ghostly choir. Outside, a black mass appears hovers over the city. Oblivious to these warning signs, the protagonists are subject to revelations. In response to the Covid and the earthquake in 2011, Tomohiro Maekawa sees Japanese society as being incapable of dealing with the unexpected. In the face of the normative straightjacket in which it often finds itself, the artist pays tribute to the unbridled power of the imagination.
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