Der Buddha-Teich
Osaka, 1880. 17-year-old Prince Henry of Prussia hunts ducks at a water where the hunt is prohibited. A resident’s rebuke leads to a scuffle and diplomatic entanglement. This anecdote from the history of European-Japanese relations is the starting point of this piece on mutual non- or misunderstanding and different cultural handling of the act of excuse. In the premiere by Japanese director Jun Tsutsui, the two actresses Natsumi Kamada and Nadja Duesterberg do not speak each other’s languages. They become mired in misunderstanding, fighting with the sub- and overtitles.
Text, Regie: Jun Tsutsui. Mit: Natsumi Kamada, Nadja Duesterberg. Dramaturgie: Oleg Zhukov. Mentor: Tomoyuki Arai. Technische Leitung: Ryoya Fudetani. Koordination: Akiko Okamoto. Produktionsassistenz: Elshanni Müller. Dolmetscher: Pia Tomoko Meid, Elshanni Müller. Übersetzung der Übertitel: Benedikt Vogel. Produktion: FFT Düsseldorf. Koproduktion: dracom, Kyoto Arts Centre. Gefördert durch: The Saison Foundation. Ein Projekt im Rahmen des Bündnisses internationaler Produktionshäuser e.V., gefördert von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.
Jun Tsutsui, born in Osaka in 1971, is a director, playwright, performer and the leader of an Osaka-based group dracom. He received an MA from Osaka University of Arts in 1997 and the Performing Arts Award of Kyoto Arts Center for dracom’s Moreuta in 2007. A Senior Fellow of the Saison Foundation from 2014 to 2017. He has participated in TPAM (Tokyo Performing Arts Market / Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama) in 2008, 2014 and 2016; the Emerging Artists Program of Festival/Tokyo in 2010; a collaboration with Toronto-based Small Wooden Shoe at Sound Live Tokyo in 2014; Nippon Performance Nights at FFT in Düsseldorf in 2017; Ueda Machinaka Theater Festival, Sendai Oroshimachi Art Marche and the 73rd edition of the Agency for Cultural Affairs National Arts Festival in 2018. His Sokonaizu was selected for the Japanese Playwrights Project of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York in 2018 and for the international competition program of the Tokyo Festival in 2019. He has collaborated with such Japanese artists and companies as Akio Suzuki, Zan Yamashita, Noriyuki Kiguchi, Matsutaka Masada, Ishinha, Toenkai and Takatsuki Senior Theatre Company, and has also worked on dance projects including a joint research project with the Kyoto University of Art & Design and “About Dances in Shin-Nagata” by Dance Box in Kobe. He opened a small space “OPA_Lab” in Settsu City in Osaka in 2017. He has regularly been working on experimental projects such as “Rough Play,” where performers learn a classical or contemporary play in one day and perform it all the way with their imperfect memory as the only navigation.