FESTIVAL/TOKYO

Encounters with "another Tokyo", a radio tour tracing the lives of Asian exchange students in the city

Following his recent presentation of the Fukushima-inspired twin theatre works "Referendum Project" (F/T11) and "Kein Licht II" (F/T12) at the Wiener Festwochen 2013, Akira Takayama (Port B) now returns to Tokyo for its latest "tour" theatre experience. Participants will receive a guide book and mobile radio with which they will visit a range of public spaces, such as restaurants and parks. At each destination they will hear about the people who used to live at the place, forming a new story of the city, and of the country. These will be encounters with spaces of Asian otherness (heterotopia), the unknown within reality. The work explores ideas of travel and translation, and the narrative text was created out of dialogue between current exchange students, and the translators Keijiro Suga and Tatsuki Hayashi. A unique "radio show" then emerges from this speculation that is transmitted widely.