Nobuko Tanaka is a stage writer who has regularly contributed contemporary theater and dance articles to The Japan Times since 2001. She also writes for several Japanese and overseas magazines and web sites. As a promoter, she takes Japanese artists to foreign theater festivals.
For Nobuko Tanaka's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
When he was 16, Hideto Iwai was perplexed as to why everyone around him unquestioningly jumped onto society's student-to-salaryman conveyor belt. So, he broke free, dropping out of high school and picking up casual jobs where he could find them. "But then I had problems ...
When the circus comes to town in most parts of the world these days, you won't see elephants, tigers or clowns with big red noses. Since Canada's animal-less Cirque du Soleil took to the road in 1984 with its character-driven shows and nonstop live music, ...
Based in mountainous Oita Prefecture in northeastern Kyushu, the privately owned and run Drum Tao company has barely paused from pounding away at the international entertainment market since it launched its overseas ambitions with a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004. Since then, ...
After eight years as artistic director for drama at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, Keiko Miyata, 60, is now tackling her final program there before passing the baton to 39-year-old Eriko Ogawa, who is set to become the theater's youngest-ever director in September. Rather than ...
Tetsuya Kumakawa speaks about his most recent project, "Cleopatra," in a way that's as grand as the Egyptian queen herself. "Nobody except me could have created this fantastic work," he tells The Japan Times. "I hope it remains a ballet classic for hundreds of years, ...
Contemporary dance seemed to enter the wider arts consciousness in Japan around the turn of the century, when there was a pronounced upsurge in the number of performances, festivals and competitions. Reflecting that rising enthusiasm, Takao Norikoshi published the encyclopedic "Contemporary Dance Thorough Guide" in ...
For casual fans of film, the name Martin McDonagh only became familiar after the movie he wrote, directed and produced, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," became the talk of this year's awards season. Actors Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell both won Oscars for their performances ...
This hasn't been a great year for social media. Internet addiction has been a hot topic, as have privacy issues, and there has even been a movement to #DeleteFacebook. Last month, Satoshi Miyagi, artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center, which runs World Theatre ...
When Akira Shirai first read the script for "Ballyturk," he quickly understood why its creator, Irish playwright Enda Walsh, said the work "should bypass the intellect and go straight into your bones." The 60-year-old artistic director at Kanagawa Arts Theatre in Yokohama was mulling over ...
There are mutual squeals of delight when Belgian dance artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Spanish flamenco dancer Maria Pages are reunited after "far too long" at a Tokyo rehearsal studio. Pages, 54, has flown in from Madrid to promote the pair's 2009 work "Dunas" ("Dunes"), ...
