PROGRAM

Marking the fourth year since reopening, ROHM Theatre Kyoto announces its program lineup for 2019.

Aspiring to build a theatre culture in the city of Kyoto, ROHM Theatre Kyoto has continued to present a wide range of programs including our own projects and productions. These efforts have encompassed presenting examples of the very best performing arts from around the world as well as producing work that can become the assets of the theatre and developing the next generation of artists. By partnering with various facilities and organizations in Kyoto, and vibrant programming that allows people of different ages and backgrounds to participate, the theatre transforms into a hub for diverse encounters.

The ROHM Theatre Kyoto Program comprises the four pillars of production, development, exchange, and lifestyle, though individual events are not tagged strictly according to these categories. This is in order to encourage organic connections between different projects by incorporating multiple elements even within a single program. For example, the main aim of the Repertory Premiere series falls, as its name suggests, within the ambit of the “production” pillar, but it also constitutes a research subject for the Research Program that cultivates younger researchers as part of our efforts within the scope of “development,” and likewise could further be activated as an “exchange” initiative between overseas and Kyoto practitioners during artist residencies.

Within the 2019 program, several productions can be coincidentally linked together through a certain keyword: puppet. The Gisèle Vienne performance produced for the Repertory Premiere series features living dancers alongside puppets so elaborate they might be mistaken with the former. The third iteration of the Traditional Performing Arts as Stage Art series, meanwhile, deals with Bunraku, the classical Japanese puppet theatre that has achieved fame around the world. We will later introduce further productions related to this. In an age when the news is always filled with the latest developments in artificial intelligence, choosing rather to focus on the puppet, something that has occupied a crucial position in human rituals as well as our cultural and cultural activities since ancient times, may offer us insights about contemporary society.

Another feature of our programming is the increase in projects that can be categorized as “synthesis.” This quality is a given as an important element for the works and projects ROHM Theatre Kyoto wants to introduce, along with a sense of audacity. The new endeavors that defy the conventional categories of “theatre,” “music,” or “dance” naturally develop in undifferentiated and composite ways. They will invite audiences to experience something akin to an adventure into the unknown.

These are but a few examples intended to show how the ROHM Theatre Kyoto Program is composed so as to bring about various connections through the aims and themes of the lineup events. This is because we want our theatre to be a place accessible not only as a facility but also in terms of its content, the latter of which entails accessibility for a range of interests and concerns. In this way, we are able to prepare opportunities to make unexpected encounters for both audiences and ourselves. And these new encounters will lead to new dialogue. It is our aim to create a cycle whereby the activities unfolding at ROHM Theatre Kyoto can accumulate, attracting even more people and bringing audiences to our theatre on a daily and sustainable basis.

Rohm Theatre Kyoto