Download Through A Distant Lens Program

RIVERSIDE THEATRES PRESENTS
A PERFORMANCE 4A PRODUCTION
THEATRE
YASUKICHI MURAKAMI:
THROUGH A DISTANT LENS
16 – 19 MARCH
WRITER’S NOTE
CAST
In time I have learnt that the most
respectful thing a photographer can do is to
listen. Listening is more than just hearing. It
is an act of taking notice, making an effort
to hold space in reverence, trusting, and
responding in humility. Yasukichi Murakami
- Through a Distant Lens was created
by listening to my creative collaborators
and following their voices to guide the
shaping of this work, to my own voice in
conversation with the spirit of Yasukichi
Murakami, his descendants and those who
remember his name. Unlike my previous
documentary performance works, Yasukichi
Murakami meant interviewing a ghost to
find his truth. I had to listen more carefully
than I had ever done before, and this is
where I found fact and imagination, past
and present, meeting my truth in theatre.
ARISA YURA
– Mayu Kanamori, 2016
COMPOSER/SOUND DESIGNER
TERUMI NARUSHIMA
KUNI HASHIMOTO
YUMI UMIUMARE (VIDEO)
TERUMI NARUSHIMA (MUSICIAN)
CREATIVES
WRITER/ORIGINAL CONCEPT
MAYU KANAMORI
DIRECTOR
MALCOLM BLAYLOCK
DRAMATURGE
JANE BODIE
LIGHTING DESIGNER
BENJAMIN BROCKMAN
VISUAL DESIGNER
MIC GRUCHY
DRAMATURGICAL CONSULTANT
YUJI SONE
PRODUCER
ANNETTE SHUN WAH
BIOGRAPHIES
MAYU
KANAMORI
Writer and
Original Concept
Mayu Kanamori is a Sydney based
photographer, storyteller and animateur,
exploring cross cultural, migrational and
Japanese diasporic themes. Her works
have received the National Aborigines and
Islanders Day Observance Committee’s
Non Indigenous Reconciliation Award, a
commendation by United Nations Media
Peace Awards and selected as a finalist
for the Walkley Awards, Conrad Jupiter Art
Prize, Olive Cotton Award for Photographic
Portraiture, Julie Milowick Photography Prize
and Harries National Digital Art Awards.
Her theatre works include The Heart of the
Journey (Post Mainstream Performance
Festival, Tokyo, Christchurch Arts Festival,
Darwin Festival), CHIKA: A Documentary
Performance (Malthouse; Performance
Space; OzAsia Festival; Salihara Festival,
Jakarta) and In Repose (OzAsia Festival; on
site at Broome, Thursday Island, Townsville
Japanese Cemeteries).
MALCOLM
BLAYLOCK
Director
Malcolm has over seventeen years’
experience in the theatre both as a
freelance director and as Artistic Director
of La Boite, Junction and Circle Theatre
Companies. He collaborated with Mayu
Kanamori on her two previous major works:
The Heart of the Journey and CHIKA: A
Documentary Performance.
He was artistic director of the Darwin
Festival and has also been the director
of the St Kilda Festival, the St Kilda Film
Festival, the Australian International
Workshop Festival, the Adelaide Fringe
Festival, and the Heart of Gold International
Film Festival.
Malcolm is currently Program Director of
the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
Custom built instrument by Kraig Grady
JANE BODIE
Dramaturg
Jane’s plays have been performed
worldwide including Music, Hinterland, This
Years Ashes, A Single Act, Still, Ride and
Fourplay. She won the Victorian Premier’s
Literary Award in 2006 and a Green Room
Award in 2003.
As a dramaturg she has worked on
productions including Dona Abela’s Jump
For Jordan, Kathryn Marquet’s Pale Blue Dot,
Julia Rose Lewis’ Samson, and with Ilbijerri
Theatre Company on ongoing projects.
Jane has written for television and radio,
including The Secret Life of Us, Tashi and
Moving Wallpaper and is currently adapting
This Years Ashes for Screen Australia. She
has worked with The Royal Court Theatre,
was Head of Playwriting at National
Institute of Dramatic Art (2010 – 2012),
Associate Artist at Griffin Theatre Company
(2013) and Artistic Associate at Playwriting
Australia (2014).
Theresa and Kathleen Murakami
TERUMI
NARUSHIMA
Composer, Sound
Designer and Musician
Terumi is a composer, performer and sound
designer who specialises in alternative
tuning systems. Her works include Tritriadic
Chimes, a sound installation for Los
Angeles MicroFest, Hidden Sidetracks, a
composition for custom-made instruments
premiered by Ensemble Offspring at the
Sydney Opera House; and a project to build
microtonal flutes using 3D printing. She
has worked on various film and theatre
collaborations, and performs regularly
with the microtonal ensemble Clocks and
Clouds. Terumi is also a senior lecturer in
music at the University of Wollongong.
MIC
GRUCHY
Visual Designer
Mic is a video artist, designer, film editor
and producer. His work spans theatre,
opera, dance, installation, feature film and
television. He was awarded an Australia
Council Outstanding Artist’s Fellowship in
interdisciplinary practice in 2012.
His theatrical design credits include
productions for Opera Australia, Sydney
Theatre Company, Legs on the Wall and
numerous international arts festivals.
Recent productions include Letter to Larry
in London’s West End and Ghosts in the
Scheme, a new work for acclaimed company
BIGhART. Mic’s upcoming productions include
a new Indonesian-Australian co-production
Age of Bones and a new opera The Crushing
for Opera Queensland.
BENJAMIN
BROCKMAN
Lighting Designer
Benjamin’s 2015 lighting design credits
include NSW Senior Citizens Regional
Concert, Grey Gardens The Musical
(Squabbalogic Independent Music Theatre),
The Aliens (Outhouse Theatre), Dark Vanilla
Jungle (Mad March Hare Theatre Company),
Griffin Theatre Company Launch, Space
Cats (Brevity Theatre), Detroit (Darlinghurst
Theatre Company), Animal/People (Rock
Surfers Theatre Company), Shivered (Mad
March Hare Theatre Company), When the
Rain Stops Falling (New Theatre), Man of La
Mancha (Squabbalogic Independent Music
Theatre), Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (Brevity
Theatre), Smurfs Live on Stage World Tour
(Millennium Entertainment International).
His production design credits for last year
include Dark Vanilla Jungle (Mad March Hare
Theatre Company), Blue Italian and Nil By
Sea (Peter Fray Presents), Shivered (Mad
March Hare Theatre Company) and Vampire
Lesbians of Sodom (Brevity Theatre).
Yasukichi Murakami
THANK YOU
KUNI
HASHIMOTO
ANNETTE
SHUN WAH
Performer
Kuni is an accomplished stage, film and
television actor in Australia and Japan. He
was a member of the Shiki Theater Company
in Japan. Kuni has also worked as an
onstage narrator for the Japan Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra,
the PMF and a joint concert by the Vienna and
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. After moving
to Australia, he has worked mainly in film
and television. His extensive credits include
Muriel’s Wedding, Tender Hook, Broken Sun,
Sisters of War, Unbroken and Predestination.
ARISA
YURA
Annette Shun Wah is a published writer,
actor, broadcaster and producer. As
executive producer of Performance 4a she
has produced highly acclaimed intercultural
productions, including In Between Two and
The Serpent’s Table (co-produced with Griffin
Theatre Company) which both premiered
at Sydney Festivals. With William Yang she
co-directed the theatrical storytelling shows
Stories Then & Now and Stories East &
West and was co-dramaturg with him on In
Between Two.
THEATRE 4A
COMMITTEE
Performer
Arisa Yura has worked extensively as an
actress, movement and voice artist, and
performance maker in Australia, Japan
and Canada. Her theatre credits include
Nippon Memories (National Institute of
Dramatic Art’s Director’s Project), Rival
of Men with Marshmallow Wave (Honda
Theatre, Tokyo, Japan), Teen Dream (FuGen Theatre Company, Toronto, Canada),
the World Premiere of Justin Fleming’s
play His Mother’s Voice with bAKEHOUSE
Theatre Company (Australian Theatre of
Young People Select), and most recently
in we, the lost company with Clockfire
Theatre Company (The Old 505 Theatre).
Her television credits include Lifestyle Café
and her debut lead role in Ballad of Praying
Mantis, which was a winner of an Eat Carpet
Award (SBS).
Producer
YUMI
UMIUMARE
Performer (Video)
Born in Hyogo, Japan, Yumi is an established
Butoh dancer and choreographer in Australia
and the creator of Butoh Cabaret works. Yumi
has been creating and teaching her distinctive
style of works over the last 20 years. Her works
are renowned for provoking visceral emotions
and cultural identities and have been seen
in numerous festivals in dance, theatre and
film productions throughout Australia, Japan,
Europe, New Zealand, South East Asia and
South America, receiving critical acclaim and
garnering her and her collaborators several
Green Room Awards. Yumi is a recent recipient
of an Australia Council fellowship, exploring her
PopUp Tearoom series.
DAI LE
IEN ANG
JENEVIEVE CHANG
ALISON COOK
TEIK-KIM POK
GARY WILLIAMS
WILLIAM YANG
ADDITIONAL MUSIC
In a Pentagonal Room performed by Clocks and
Clouds (Kraig Grady and Terumi Narushima)
Bakya Mo Neneng and Shakehand Dance
performed by The Darwin Rondalla
PHOTO CREDITS
Photographs and images courtesy of
Murakami Family Archives, Noreen Jones
Photographic Collection, Sisters of St John
of God Photographic Collection, Broome
Historical Society, National Archives
of Australia, Australian War Memorial,
National Museum of Australia, Kate Lance
Photographic Collection Mutsumi Tsuda
Photographic Collection and Archives,
Hamaguchi Family Archives, Puertollano /
Masuda Family Archives, Ted and Eunice
Hang Family Archives, The Darwin Rondalla,
Watabe Australia, Northern Territory
Library’s Young Mayse, V. Fletcher, D. D
Smith, Bill Allcorn, Al Jarvis, Bill Littlejohn,
Bill and Betty Eacott, Marella, G. J. Towers,
Frank Blackwell, Peter Spillett, and Fay
Kilgariff Collections.
YASUKICHI MURAKAMI PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
Whilst researching for the theatre production Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens, his
original photographic prints and printed postcards were found. Some were on mantelpieces in homes
of old Broome families; with a researcher in Bunbury; in the Northern Territory Library’s photographic
collection - unaccredited to him as a photographer; and in his hometown in Japan from where
Murakami originally set sail for Australia. Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens’ production
team is donating Murakami’s photographs to the State Library of Western Australia, and are honored
to be able to contribute to the finding and archiving of a slice of Australian history that had been lost.
This photographic exhibition at Riverside Theatres is the first time Yasukichi Murakami’s work has
been exhibited. Please join us in the Foyer after the show to experience this powerful exhibition.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the
Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; Creative Ecologies Lab, Media, Music, Communications
and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University; the Japan Foundation; School of the Arts and
Media, University of NSW; and Playwriting Australia. Performance 4a is supported by the NSW
Government through Arts NSW.
RIVERSIDE THEATRES
DIRECTOR
ROBERT LOVE
BUSINESS MANAGER
PAMELA THORNTON
OUR PARTNERS
PRINCIPAL PARTNER
(GOVERNMENT)
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
JONATHAN LLEWELLYN
OPERATIONS MANAGER
LINDA TAYLOR
PARTNER
(GOVERNMENT)
PROGRAM MANAGER
MICHELLE KOTEVSKI
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER,
NATIONAL THEATRE OF PARRAMATTA
JOANNE KEE
MAJOR
PARTNER
PARTNER
(HOTEL)