“Phantom scenes” expanding the city, presented by stage designers

Sceno-ha (Scenographers’ Collective), which seeks to renew the practice of stage design by leaving the theatre and going out into the city, launches a “phantom” edition of “Roaming Shopping Street Festival” that shuttles between on and offline locations.

The four stage designers in the collective each present a different project in the shopping streets of Toshima. Though adopting a range of approaches, from wandering the streets to watching videos, all of the projects variously explore ways of doing things alone.

When you walk around a shopping street or when you view a video online, you will see an optical illusion—an image of the city witnessed by you alone.

Venues: online (special Phantom Edition website), Toshima shopping streets, other locations around Toshima
Friday, October 16–Sunday, November 15, 2020

The Journey to a Journey to a Journey (Itaru Sugiyama)
https://www.scenoha-festivaltokyo.jp/sugiyama.html

This project takes inspiration from a travelogue by the poet Masaoka Shiki. “The autumn wind of a journey to a journey to a journey,” he wrote. Shiki composed verse while drifting from locale to locale. In 2020, when we are no longer so free to travel far, we will depart on journeys alone around certain scenes (that is, scenography) lying concealed around the city.

“Scenes” here refers to landscapes, scenery, sights, and so on. Six artists (travelers) embarked on journeys around the city and the shopping streets of Toshima. They will gradually reveal the 48 scenes they discovered, recreated in the form of words, sketches, sounds, and more.

On the map on the Phantom Edition website, you can view these scenes the travelers found. Which scenes intrigue you? Depart on your own journey to visit these places and experience the scenes for yourself.

You can also share the scenes that you discover on your journeys. These scenes, as seen through the unique eyes of each participant, will form a chain and connect with other journeys. Uploaded scenes will be viewable from November 1.

Roofing the Roof with a Roof (Ryo Sakamoto)
https://www.scenoha-festivaltokyo.jp/sakamoto.html

This is a video work capturing a performance in the Toshima district of Minami Nagasaki, taking place on a rooftop on which a stage and audience seating was built.

The rooftop was originally designed as a place for people to congregate, but is currently closed.

By setting up another rooftop on top of this, a place was created that permits simply being there, without the need for efficiency or usefulness.

Because it is now hard for people to physically gather here, the site has been redesigned as a piece of stage design that encompasses even the audience.

The completed video will be released in early November. From October 16, audiences can also view fixed-point photographs each accompanied by a quotation from a book.

A Festival by Everyone (Ayami Sasaki)
https://www.scenoha-festivaltokyo.jp/sasaki.html

This project aims to be a “mental festival” taking place only inside the minds of people during this time we find ourselves in right now, when we are not able to gather in one place and hold a festival. Please visit the locations and try the experience.

Photo stand-in boards are scattered around the 3-chome neighborhood of Minami-Otsuka. Please find them, put your head through the hole, and take a picture. On the board is printed a giant QR code, reading which with your phone will take you to a video uploaded online. There you can watch footage of the kinds of festivals that local people described.

Through stories unfolding inside the bodies of the people living around a shopping street in which various cultures, languages, and religions intermix, please enjoy this festival by everyone.

Further information about the experience will be gradually released on the Phantom Edition website from October 16.

Dioramic Scenes (Tomomi Nakamura)
https://www.scenoha-festivaltokyo.jp/nakamura.html

For this project held inside a shopping street in the Toshima district of Ikebukuro Honcho, fragmentary memories related to scenes and festivals as told to us by locals are expressed in the form of photographs and video.

Even among the residents of the same shopping street, the memories related to the local area will vary greatly from person to person.

Extracting these memories of local people’s personal interpretations of the landscape and festivals, models of an imaginary shopping street were created from the varied memories.

On the Phantom Edition website, audiences can view a short film and slideshows of a city formed by these models. View a nonexistent city from a range of perspectives and come into contact with scenes from a festival that might once have taken place.