In collaboration with artists from all over Asia, we composed and staged in Thailand, Philippines, and China part 2.5 of Mahabharata General Asia Project. Mahabharata is an international collaboration performance since 2013 as part of their eight year work toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The purpose was to reconstruct Mahabharata, a possible common ideological/philosophical foundation for the religiously and historically diverse Asian region, in the modern day as a stage act. The cosponsors are Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, Philippine’s Theatre education committee, and China’s Shanghai Huaju Center. We have participated in the Bangkok Theater Festival in Bangkok and ACT Festival in Shanghai held by the Shanghai Huaju Center. Not only have we preformed the stage in various regions, we have also held workshops and talk shows, further carrying out efforts to appeal to human intellect and sensibility.
Achievements of FY 2016 https://grant-fellowship-db.asiawa.jpf.go.jp/grant/cc1604/ Achievements of FY 2017 https://grant-fellowship-db.asiawa.jpf.go.jp/grant/cc1723/
- Related Countries
- Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, China
From the Organizer
We were able to create a high quality stage act with the cooperation of artists from six different Asian nations, and received praise from the audiences of three different Asian Countries in which we staged the performance. There is no doubt that the project promoted cultural interchanges and mutual understanding between the artists. We also believed it was significant that many intellectuals and artists joined in on the project when we provided a chance for the audience to participate in the project individually through workshops. This project used Mahabharata (sacred writings originating from Asia) in order to promote and spread Asian ideologies of “coexistence and common cultural heritage,” but thanks to the well-received reviews and transmission of domestic Asian tour reports it seems that we were able to promote the original writings as well. By performing Hiroshi Koike’s work, which respects various cultures while fusing them as one through the communication of body and space, as our one of nation’s representative projects with the aid of the Japan Foundation, the project became a deeply meaningful one in which we were able to let the world know of Japan’s highly developed cultural standard.
