GEISHA

GEISHA
Performed at Singapore Arts Festival, Victoria Theatre, Singapore, 9 & 10 June 2006

GEISHA was also performed at:
Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, South Carolina, 26 -- 30 May 2006
Lincoln Center Festival, Gerald W. Lynch Theater, New York City, 27 -- 30 July 2006
Goteborg Dance & Theatre Festival, Goteborg, 18 & 19 August 2006
Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival, Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium, Hong Kong, 17 & 18 November 2006

A Theatreworks Production
For more details, check out www.theatreworks.org.sg


Geisha is perhaps one of the biggest symbols of Japanoiserie, it is an empty screen on which all our fantasies of Japan can be projected, even for many contemporary Japanese individuals today who do not come into contact easily with this old world. However it is not just exotic but it is a powerful arena to discuss the water world or a dream world, a floating world. It seems to encapsulate many notions of Japanese identity, gender relationships but more universally it is a space to discuss life, dream and reality for the world.

New York-based performer Karen Kandel, winner of several Obies, weaves together stories from geishas, maikos (apprentice geishas), clients, their wives, okamisans (mama-sans), offspring of geishas, anthropologists. Kandel animates this voice tapestry, giving life to the secret world of the geisha. Joining her onstage will be female impersonator, kabuki dancer Gojo Masanosuke. He dances the female onnagata role drawing from the age-old repertory of kabuki and nihon buyoh (classical Japanese dance). For the geisha is the tragic heroine of many a kabuki play.

Kandel and Masanosuke complement each other, these two unexpected conspirators jointly evoke the dream of the absent geisha. They are the dream sellers, like the geishas.

Finally there is the element of music for the geisha spins her atmosphere through the art of stories, dance and music in the ochaya (tea house) with her clients. Kineya Katsumatsu, from the famed traditional school of shamisen, joins forces with electronic wizard Toru Yamanaka who created the contemporary soundscapes for the seminal shows of Dumb Type.

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