Okinawa Thoughts

We had a big production meeting in Okinawa, in the very short time that everyone was available. Mr Shimoyama, so busy during the festival, could only manage a 10.00pm meeting, and Toyoko was arriving later in the evening, so she was there for the later stages only. But it was good to sit in the hotel dining room, around a long table, and feel how our great endeavour is progressing.... it is an exciting feeling.

These are the highlights of our discussions....

...Birmingham REP confirmed they will present two weeks of performances from 15 – 30 May plus three days in Leicester from 1 – 3 June.

..... Joyful confirmed two weeks of performances from 15 July – 2 August.

... Kijimuna Festa confirmed 5 performances from 5 – 7 August 2009.

The plan for our next workshops in Birmingham in October is taking shape. Minato San will arrive late, but will be present for most of the two week workshop.

There will be a sharing of the work, with sections played on Friday 17 October with invited audience including children.

There are two additional periods when writers may meet (at no cost to this project).
End of October in Seoul – Peter and Nishida san will travel to Seoul.
Festival of early years work in Bologna, Italy, February 2008 (dates to be confirmed)

Simon Bond, lighting designer, will attend sessions as necessary and meet with director and designer.

The objective of the Birmingham residency is to develop the production style/staging of the show, and to complete a detailed storyline and first (patchy) draft script before departure.

The casting of the play was agreed by everybody, and the three actors will be approached within the next few weeks. The final cast member will be a musician. It may not be Minato san, as originally anticipated, but instead a Japanese musician chosen by Minato san.

Yeon explained that design would consist of “organic/earthy” materials, not industrial materials. It will not be naturalistic design. The design will enable the set to pack up relatively small for international freight. Little to add at this stage.

It was emphasised by all UK members that the design should feel Korean, that Yeon should bring her Korean-ness to the project as designer. Although the location of the story is a city which could be any modern urban place, we should be very sure that the meeting of cultures is very much in evidence in the play, through visuals, music, and stagecraft. UK members are very keen that Korean and Japanese culture are strongly represented in the production. It is important for each partner that we do not end up with a production that is universal in that it could have been produced without the international partners. We do not want a production that looks “Western”.

Yeon’s idea is to devise the set with the actors and to collect objects such as ropes, nets and ladders. She would like these objects to be brought to the school workshops too.

Minato san plans to appoint a Japanese musician to the project who will probably join the company for rehearsals in Korea.

There will be one musician, but all the cast members will be asked to contribute to the soundtrack for the production. Rhythm will play an important part. Minato san would like to hold a full day music workshop with the actors in the first week as early as possible as a skills audit. He will also lead a music workshop for maybe 1 hr a day during the residency.

The writing team will use the school workshops to explore the characters of Norang, Aka and Blue and to generate ideas and feelings of loneliness and alienation.

All partners discussed the idea of creating a digital means for children to exchange their creativity and ideas via a website. In the budget all partners aim to contribute to a budget to pay for this facility. But first we need ideas as to how to do this. A brainstorm by email required. Peter, Mi-Jeong and Nishida san to exchange ideas by end of August.

Birmingham may organise a seminar to run on one day during the performance period themed on intercultural collaboration and using the project as a case study.

Japan will host a symposium for the project if it can be linked to a performance of the show in Tokyo.

We also had a meeting in Okinawa with Professor Dazai, Hisao of Tamagawa University Dept of Performing Arts, attended by Peter, Judy, Professor Young Ai, Choi of Korean National Univeristy of the Arts, and Professor Yuriko Kobayashi of Toyoko Gakuen Women’s College Tokyo. The idea is to create a one day event completely focussed on the project Looking for Yoghurt, inviting interested artists and academics for discussion and members of the Looking for Yoghurt production team to discuss the process.

A Tropical Bonus

Today the creative team and the producers of Looking for Yoghurt are meeting again. We have been able to do this because most of us are involved in the Kijimuna Festa, the fantastic annual Young Peoples Theatre Festival in Okinawa, Japan.

For Hanyong, it is a double occasion. The Bridge is being presented here for the final time, and as an extraordinary journey comes to an end, the next steps are being taken in the new one.

Okinawa is a unique place - a subtropical island a long way south from the main islands of Japan, with a culture and history apart. Home to 20,000 US soldiers and airpeople, with an economy heavily dependent on their bases, it shares with Korea a past of being tossed between the neighbouring powers of Japan and China, and was actually owned by the states after the war and as loate as the seventies. Okinawa City, where the festival is based is what would be called 'sprawling', a mess of low-rise box buildings, of peeling concrete, constructed flat and thick to withstand the harsh storms that lash the place. It is a weird amalgam - smiling and exuberant south pacific islanders who are supposed to be formal, reserved and japanese. Then while struggling with that paradox they have been hijacked by the seedy commercialism of the US Forces. But it is a mixture which it is hard not to enjoy, in the anomalies it throws up. Certainly it would be really hard not to enjoy being here, with its beautiful weather, turqouise tepid sea water and silver beaches. Not to mention 300 performances by companies from across the world.

So into this context, hosted by one of our producers, Hisashi Shimoyama, the Looking for Yoghurt team has assembled. Judy and I have been here for a week, with Byung Ho. Yeon and Mijeong arrived on Thursday, and Toyoko will arrive tonight, just in time for our main producers meeting. That is at 10.30pm, timetabled to get access to Mr Shimoyama, who is currently the busiest man here, as organiser of this huge festival. Also here is Rachel Kavenaugh, Artistic Director of Birmingham REP, who is getting up to speed with the project, as well as tasting some work and getting some experience of this part of the world.

Yesterday we had a meeting with Mijeong, Judy, Rachel, Yeon and Byung Ho, to re-cap a little and plan for our main writers meeting which will be on Sunday. Mijeong told the story of the play so far, in a typically enticing and skilled way, and I think it made us all feel as if the work we had done in May in Seoul and Tokyo does stand up - the ingredients are all in place. We talked through a few posibilities, and filled Rachel in on where we were and a little of how we got there.

So this get-together is a bonus, an extra oppurtunity to plan, and already the chance to meet again here in the sunshine feels like a really valuable one. It may be that not many major decisions will be made, -at least on the creative side - until we have our workshop time together again in October in Birmingham, but as another step in building our collaboration it is an exciting and very valuable one.