Eight years after “words” and the highly acclaimed “Zeitgeber,” which turned the relationship between caregiver and the cared for into riveting documentary theatre, Takuya Murakawa makes his long-awaited return to Festival/Tokyo.

The protagonist of this work, which takes the form of a piano recital and dialogue with Murakawa, is a man in his seventies living in Kyoto, who was inspired to start learning the piano after hearing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Prompted by questions, fragmants of the man’s life begin to emerge, from his first encounter with music to the health problems that have plagued his eyesight since the age of 20 until the present. Over the course of this, pianists of various ages appear and perform music to adorn his memories. This culminates with a recital of “Moonlight Sonata.”

The approach evident here, whereby something very real—an actual person and his story—is re-enacted in a theatre space in a way that is interwoven into a performance, invites the audience to encounter something important yet overlooked or missed, regardless of whether or not it exists in reality.

Akio Nakashima, others

Conceived and Directed by Takuya Murakawa
Dramaturge: Tatsuki Hayashi
Performer: Akio Nakashima
Stage Manager: Shuji Hamamura
Lighting: Kosuke Ashidano
Sound: Takenori Sato
Video: Noriko Shiroma, Kohei Kitagawa
Assistant Director: Keita Nagazawa
Production Coordinators: Tsubasa Shimizu
Producer: Tomoya Takeda (Kankarasha), Chihiro Suzuki (Festival/Tokyo)

A ROHM Theatre Kyoto production
Publicity Design: TAICHI ABE DESIGN INC.
Presented by Festival/Tokyo

Takuya Murakawa
Takuya Murakawa is a theater director and video artist. Employing documentary and fieldwork approaches, his practice traverses multiple fields from video/film to theatre and visual art. His work has been performed widely at home and abroad, including “Zeitgeber” (F/T11 Emerging Artists Program), which recreated onstage the relationship between a caregiver and the cared for, and at Japan Syndrome – Art and Politics after Fukushima at HAU, Berlin, in 2014. In 2016, he stayed in Shanghai and Beijing as an East Asian Cultural Exchange Envoy for the Agency for Cultural Affairs. This production marks his first appearance at Festival/Tokyo since “words” in 2012. He is a part-time instructor in the performing arts and film departments at Kyoto University of the Arts.

Style of performance: Regular performance

Schedule: 10/31(Sat)‐11/1(Sun)

Ticket fee

Advance Tickets：¥3,500
Student Tickets：¥2,300
High School & Younger Tickets：¥1,000

Tickets on sale:

10:00 on 9/13 (Sun)

Organizer: Festival/Tokyo Executive Committee (Toshima City, Toshima Mirai Cultural Foundation, NPO Arts Network Japan [NPO-ANJ]),
Tokyo Festival Executive Committee (Toshima City, Toshima Mirai Cultural Foundation, Festival/Tokyo Executive Committee, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture [Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre & Arts Council Tokyo])

Festival/Tokyo Executive Committee Secretariat
contact(at)festival-tokyo.jp