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 Mika Eglinton

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Mika Eglinton
Mika Eglinton is a performing arts researcher, critic and journalist. She is professor of English theater and cultural studies at Kobe University of Foreign Studies. She is also actively involved in the creation of theater as a translator, dramaturg and facilitator.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 17, 2014
Japan recast as a konbini state
Following its May world premiere in Mannheim, Germany, and a summer spent gathering great reviews from its European tour, "Super Premium Soft Double Vanilla Rich" finally debuted in Japan last week at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre in Yokohama.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 10, 2014
Under new management: Festival/Tokyo focuses on diversity in a quest for 'border play'
Under its new 65-year-old director, Sachio Ichimura, who replaced respected 39-year-old Chiaki Soma in a shock move in March, Festival/Tokyo 2014 adopted "border play" as its catchphrase.
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
Sep 17, 2014
Audiences set to star in Ago's language quest
Satoshi Ago has been in the news lately following his appointment as artistic director of the small but pioneering Kyoto theater, Atelier Gekken. Since long before that, however, the playwright, actor and director has been renowned for his thought-provoking "theater of mechanical reproduction."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 10, 2014
Japanese artists to the fore in 2014 Avignon Festival
With its declared mission being to widen participation, this summer's 68th Avignon Festival in the South of France boasted 37 productions from 17 countries, with 25 of the works by newcomers and half by artists under 35. As well, the work chosen to open the beautiful medieval city's three-week annual...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2014
'Sleep' dances toward another world
As a dancer, choreographer, philosopher and now professor in the Department of Scenography Design, Drama and Dance at Tama Art University in Setagaya, Tokyo, Saburo Teshigawara has been extending the range of his talents ever since he stopped studying visual arts and sculpture to begin learning ballet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2014
Kunio plays 'Hamlet' fast and loose
How do you imagine the Prince of Denmark? Perhaps as one of the famed portrayals by Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Mel Gibson or Ethan Hawke — or simply as a weak-willed bore forever agonizing over "To be or not to be" and all that. Well, however you visualize the hero of Shakespeare's longest...
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 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...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 14, 2014
'Oscar' special marks 100 years of Takarazuka
As one in a series of special productions to mark its centennial, Takarazuka — Japan's longest-standing theater company with all-female casts — is reviving "The Rose of Versailles — Oscar," its 1972 hit adaptation of an acclaimed manga series by Riyoko Ikeda that, in numerous productions...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 30, 2014
Rough transition raises issues over F/T's future
On Dec. 18, 2013, the Festival/Tokyo website announced that following the implementation of "a new administration system," Program Director Chiaki Soma, 38, would resign from her position and be replaced at the end of March 2014 by Sachio Ichimura, 64, the then chairman of F/T's executive committee.
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...
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
Behold 'surprised bodies' in Kyoto
Kyoto is going global in the world of dance this month, as the city's Monochrome Circus teams up with the Norwegian company Wee on "The Surprised Body Project."
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 15, 2014
Woman's-eye 'Merchant' duo reflects favorably on Shylock role
Since it was founded in 1990 by Shakespeare scholar, actor and director Kaoru Edo, Tokyo Shakespeare Company has been producing the Bard's plays translated by Edo in an adaptation series titled "Shakespeare on the other side of the mirror."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 18, 2013
Show marks award of kabuki star's new name
Names matter, and in the realm of Japanese culture almost nowhere more than in kabuki, one of whose top names, Ennosuke IV, has just become artistic director of the Shunju-za theater in Kyoto.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 27, 2013
Takarazuka dances to a different tune
What happens when Takarazuka, Japan's longest-running all-female theater troupe, takes on Masayuki Suo's hit movie "Shall We Dance?," which won 14 Japanese Academy Awards in 1996 and aired internationally in 16 countries?

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