In the early 1980s, when he was a student at the University of Tokyo, Hideki Noda began to emerge as a standard bearer of something new in Japan: Contemporary theater by — and for — young people seeking to change their country.
To drop out of an elite university, as Noda did, to devote yourself to a career in the theater was quite a radical statement at the time (indeed, it still is).
Now at the age of 55, Noda continues to make radical statements as artistic director at the municipally funded Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space (TMAS) in the capital's Ikebukuro district. His latest is a piece titled "Minami e" ("To the South"), which focuses on the origin of the Japanese people and — controversially — of the Imperial Family.