Festival/Tokyo press conference

Was held at the large conference room in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, Ikebukuro (one of the three main venues for the Festival/Tokyo) on Tuesday, November 25th.

The artists attending the press conference were: Norimizu Ameya, Satoshi Miyagi, LEE Youn-Taek, Yukio Ninagawa, Masataka Matsuda, Akira Takayama, Shu Matsui, and Shigehiro Ide (not in the picture)

After a brief presentation of the Tokyo Culture Creation Project and the festival outline and concept, the artists were invited to give a brief presentation of their work, as well to say a word or two about what their expectations towards Festival/Tokyo was.

Probably the most renowned Japanese director, Yukio Ninagawa, stated that "just like we go overseas to see theatre and dance, I want this to be a festival people are coming from abroad to see." Talking about Ikebukuro, he said that "Ikebukuro is a vacuum. When I crossed the Nishiguchi park to come here, I felt that it was too large, almost inhuman. I see it as our role to make it more soft place to be."

In preparing for our festival, we actually conducted a survey on what impression people have of Ikebukuro, and it turned out that it was not too good. Looking at how the art triangle contributed to alter the image of Roppongi, we see it as our duty also to turn Ikebukuro and Toshima ward into a culture spot.

The foreign artists (Romeo Castellucci and Rimini Protokoll) contributed with a video message, so did Oriza Hirata, who currently finds himself in France, where he is working on "Utopia?" together with Sylvain Maurice and Amir Reza Koohestani. Video extracts (in the case of a re-staging), will be available on the website shortly; small tasters to give an impression of what is awaiting in February and March!

Above: Everyone was charmed by Rimini Protokoll's Daniel Wetzel's original video spectacle

by F/T staff 2008年12月25日