author

 
 
Andrew Eglinton
Andrew Eglinton, a theater writer and researcher, contributes regularly to The Japan Times. He is a lecturer in performance studies at Konan Women's University.
For Andrew Eglinton's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 24, 2017
T-C-T and TPAM set to offer a hot winter's feast of the arts
A bonanza is brewing in Tokyo and Yokohama for lovers of cross-cultural contemporary theater.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 25, 2016
Kyoto Experiment festival revels in breaking barriers
"Good fences make good neighbors" is an often-quoted line from Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" about two farmers united in their effort to rebuild a wall that divides their land. Less well known is the poem's central query: "Why do good fences make good neighbors?" It's a question that seems particularly relevant in today's world, and it's at the heart of the Kyoto Experiment festival running through Nov. 13.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 27, 2016
Ishinha set for stunning final show
Performing on deserted beaches and in villages, temples, dockland warehouses and urban railyards, few theater companies can have traversed the range of landscapes and settings that have inspired Osaka-based Ishinha.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 23, 2016
Kyoto Experiment goes from strength to strength
“It may be wrong to mix different wines, but old and new wisdom make an excellent mixture." So claims The Singer in Bertolt Brecht's 1944 play, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 25, 2015
New Ishinha performance taps timeless 'Twilight' zone
Tokyo may be Japan's performing-arts hub, but a growing number of artists are swapping the strictures of its cultural marketplace for the creative and lifestyle benefits of life outside the capital.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 21, 2015
Performing arts poised to bloom at ETAT 2015
The sixth Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale is set to start July 26 in Tokamachi City and Tsunan Town in Niigata Prefecture, north-central Honshu.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 31, 2015
Konan W.U. students set to mark 50 years of Shakespeare in English
In 1964, the late Polish theater scholar Jan Kott wrote "Shakespeare, Our Contemporary," an influential book that questioned the processes of producing Shakespeare in the here and now and whether the Bard's texts should serve as clues for an archeological dig to recover something of their original history — or as conduits that channel concerns specific to a present time, place and people.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 4, 2015
Groundbreaking Bard double bill is set to surprise in more ways than one
Over the past decade, Shintaro Mori has made a name for himself in Japan's theater world as a director with a passion for plays in translation. So, true to form, next month at the ACM Theater in Art Tower Mito he is staging a double bill comprising Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night" (or "What You Will"), which was written around 1601-02, and an adaptation of "I, Malvolio," by the contemporary English playwright, director and actor Tim Crouch.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 7, 2015
'Flies' festers at core of family life
Central to William Golding's dystopian novel "Lord of the Flies" is the notion of violence as a social construct. "Maybe there is a beast ... maybe it's only us," says the protective Simon before a hostile assembly of other schoolboys marooned on the uninhabited island where the English Nobel laureate set their blood-soaked descent into savagery.
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 1, 2015
Kansai region on course to enhance its blossoming arts renaissance
In its 2013 policy report, the Agency for Cultural Affairs vowed to build "a nation based on culture and the arts" through the promotion of regional festivals, artist-in-residence programs and other events.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 26, 2014
Life's the star in new 'Constellations'
As the third play in its series titled Drama for Two — The Power of Dialogue, the New National Theatre, Tokyo, is set to stage acclaimed English playwright Nick Payne's two-hander quantum love story "Constellations" for a three-week run from Dec. 3.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 19, 2014
Asia enriches the Bard's work-in-progress
Whatever would William Shakespeare make of it all if he were to journey now through Asia, where the interpretations of his works differ so much across vast regions, ethnic groups, cultures and languages?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 24, 2014
Kyoto Experiment marries form to cutting-edge content
Kyoto Experiment, the city's monthlong international performing-arts festival that debuted in 2010 and has been growing in popularity in the vanguard of contemporary performance every year since, is now set to embark on its fifth and most radical edition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2014
Suitcase 'Macbeth' packs a punch
Cultures collide on the small square stage of Mansai Nomura's pared-down "Macbeth," in which the actor/director draws on the restrained aesthetics of noh and the agility and wit of kyōgen traditional comic theater as he transplants his version of Shakespeare's blood-soaked Scottish play to medieval Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 4, 2014
Famed Kinosaki hot-spring idyll immerses itself in performing arts
The small hot-spring resort of Kinosaki beside the Sea of Japan in northern Hyogo Prefecture is as picturesque as it is peacefully genteel. However, with April's opening of the Kinosaki International Arts Center (KIAC), this rural home to fewer than 5,000 now aims to become a major performing-arts hub as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 23, 2014
French to the fore on SPAC's 2014 festival menu
It is often said that "variety is the spice of life," but in the multifarious world of theater it is more a staple than a special condiment. That said, "variety" is the keyword chosen by Satoshi Miyagi, artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), to capture the upcoming and especially diverse 2014 World Theatre Festival Shizuoka under Mt. Fuji.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 12, 2014
Taihen actors put bodies on the line
Observing rehearsals by the physical-theater company Taihen for their upcoming "Over the Rainbow" show at ABC Hall in Osaka was in many ways a free-jazz experience.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 26, 2014
Get into 'Gear' at an immersive Kyoto theater show
Art Complex 1928, a contemporary performing-arts venue in central Kyoto, used to be a regional office of the Mainichi Shimbun national newspaper.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 12, 2014
Dance, Kobe — dance!
Whatever springs to mind when you think of Kobe, it's unlikely to be dance. Yet, from the fourth floor of a nondescript building in the port city's multiethnic district of Shin-Nagata there shines forth a veritable beacon called Dance Box.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 5, 2014
Yokohama's annual feast of TPAM
As befits its designation as a "Cultural City of East Asia 2014," Yokohama is about to host Japan's foremost annual platform for contemporary performing arts.

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree