Teater Garasi and Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) successfully held “Peer Gynts: Asylum’s Dreams”, an inter-Asia collaboration show, at the SPAC main theater in Shizuoka for two weeks, from November 5 to November 19, 2019.
This show successfully attracted approximately 2,000 spectators who came from various cities in Japan. Both junior high school students and well-known Japanese critics praised the 2 hour 15-minute show.
Speaking after the premiere for the general audience on November 9, SPAC Artistic Director Satoshi Miyagi welcomed the show, calling it a work that embodies the concept of “New Asia”.
“There is a tendency among Asian theaters to continue the tradition of the past or adopt Western theater,” Miyagi said.
“In dealing with world issues, Asian theater must go beyond Asia. I see “Peer Gynts – Asylum’s Dreams” open and accessible to Western audiences and at the same time touching the reality faced by Asians. In this case, this work represents the future of theater” he concluded.
A long journey
“Peer Gynts-Asylum’s Dreams” is part of a large project called Multitude of Peer Gynts (MPG). The performance in Shizuoka, was one of several performances, the result of collaboration between artists from Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, led by two artists from Teater Garasi : Yudi Ahmad Tajudin (director) and Ugoran Prasad (dramaturg).
This performance is the result of three stages of a developing work as a general Multitude of Peer Gynts project: the first one was in East Flores, Indonesia (June-July 2019), the second in Tokyo, Japan (August-September 2019) and the third in Shizuoka, Japan (October-November 2019). Teater Garasi hopes to stage this work in Indonesia soon.
Multitude of Peer Gynts is a collaborative project between Teater Garasi’s resident artists such as Gunawan Maryanto, MN Qomarudin, Arsita Iswardhani and Ignatius Sugiarto with renowned Asian artists already present in international forums: Takao Kawaguchi (performance artist, choreographer, dancer), Micari (actress), Yasuhiro Morinaga (sound artist, composer), all three from Japan; Venuri Perera (choreographer, dancer) from Sri Lanka; and Nguyen Manh Hung (visual artist) from Vietnam. The show in Shizuoka was also composed by a collaborative process with SPAC artists such as Ouchi Yoneji, Sato Yuzu, Tateno Momoyo, Makiyama Yudai, Miyagishima Haruka and Wakamiya Yoichi.
The Multitude of Peer Gynts project is one of the 2019 Ibsen Scholarship winners.
Photographer: Y. Inokuma