Next year will mark the New York premiere performances of a new collaborative project whose organizers hope will spur a revolution in the film and theater industries of Japan.
Hikobae, meaning, in Japanese, the new shoots that sprout from a felled tree, is the working title of the project and it consists of two performances that will explore Japan's relationship with nuclear power — from the World War II attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station.
The project is the realization of a 30-year-old dream of the actor, filmmaker, and founder of the Tokyo and Osaka based Actor's Clinic acting school, Toshi Shioya. Shioya has not only achieved significant success in international films and TV series and as the director of the critically acclaimed 2007 film "Winds from Zero," but he has also trained some of Japan's biggest actors, including Osamu Mukai, Saki Aibu, Kenta Kiritani and Kyoko Hasegawa.