Message
Opening message from Satoshi Miyagi
SPAC serves up a Spring festival of fun and food for the mind
Everybody knows that people die if they don’t have food. But during the pandemic I also realized that a person’s spirit could starve without nutrition for their mind — in particular, the kind of nutrition provided by culture and the arts.
So when Covid passed, many people were left hungry for that kind of mental nutrition, and since then their appetite has breathed new life into the hard-hit performing arts world.
However, while of course welcoming back arts lovers and audiences, I also wonder whether just returning to the pre-pandemic situation is a satisfactory outcome to all that recent disruption.
My concern is that I think there are two types of nutrition: one that simply maintains the body, and others that may help to change it for the better. Similarly, I believe some kinds of nutrition for the mind just keep it ticking over, while others can improve it or expand a person’s awareness.
After the mental starvation of the pandemic period, people were obviously in need of basic mental nutrition, and many returned enthusiastically to their favorite kinds of productions, especially in some of the most popular genres.
However, I think that people going to see cherished popular productions that reassure them and maintain their mental faculties is different from them improving their minds, or changing their ways of thinking. So as the next post-pandemic step, I think that people need to mix different forms of nutrition.
Until now, such a changeover has more commonly happened in the art world from where, for example, the acknowledgement of “beauty” has spread with time through the general society along with changes in people’s perceptions of art.
Regrettably, though, I feel that many people in today’s Japan have forgotten about the pleasure of opening their minds to new ideas to improve themselves. In fact, with many voices in society threateningly declaring “we can’t survive if we don’t change”, I think a lot of people tend to almost blindly attend a performance just to convince themselves they are doing something constructive.
In reality, however, I don’t think positive change in people’s thinking occurs under threat, but when they are enjoying their participation. After all, life is too long to just be endured. It should be fun, and then people naturally expand their minds and change themselves in a process that can be the most enjoyable thing in life.
Even so, like good food for the body, good mental nourishment can also probably take a bit of time to work its magic and promote refreshed new thinking. Nonetheless, I hope you’ll be able to feast on works that both nourish and stimulate you as you enjoy the menu of performances at SPAC’s annual festival this spring. Bon appétit!
18 February 2025
SPAC General artistic director MIYAGI Satoshi
MIYAGI Satoshi (General Artistic Director of SPAC)
MIYAGI Satoshi
Born in Tokyo in 1959, after studying aesthetics at Tokyo University under ODASHIMA Yushi, WATANABE Moriaki and HIDAKA Hachiro, he founded the KU NA’ UKA theatre company in 1990 and soon began staging plays overseas as well as in Japan. As a result, Miyagi’s work — in which he often fuses contemporary textual interpretations with physical techniques and patterns of Asian theatre — has long been acclaimed both at home and far beyond. Indeed, in 2004 he received the 3rd Asahi Performing Arts Award, and the next year the 2nd Asahi Beer Art Award. Since taking up his position with SPAC in April 2007, Miyagi has staged many of his own works — including “Medea”, the Hindu epic “Mahabharata”, and “Peer Gynt” — and has invited artists from abroad to present pieces casting a keen eye on the modern world as they see it. In line with his aim to make theatre “a window to the world,” he has also started a new SPAC-based project aimed at the youth of Shizuoka. In 2014, Miyagi was invited to the Festival d’Avignon, where he received excellent reviews for his open-air version of the Hindu epic “Mahabharata” staged in La Carrière de Bourbon. Following that landmark achievement, the festival extended the honor of inviting Miyagi to present a Buddhist interpretation he created of the ancient Greek mythological tragedy “Antigone” as its super-prestigious opening program for 2017. On that occasion, which was the first time an Asian play had ever been selected to launch the festival, Miyagi’s exalted “stage” was the open-air Cour d’honneur du Palais des papes (the Honor Court of the Palace of Popes). By the play’s end, those towering medieval stone walls were ringing out with long and splendid standing ovations welcoming the work’s director and creator along with SPAC’s actors and staff — while more than 60 European media all gave great reviews. In 2018, he received the 68th Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize of Drama. Also he recieved “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” from the Ministry of Culture of France in 2018.
World Theatre Festival Shizuoka
Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) will hold its annual World Theatre Festival Shizuoka 2025 from 26 April to 6 May, coinciding as usual with the national Golden Week holiday. SPAC will introduce a wide range of cutting-edge theatre programs from Japan and abroad at venues in Shizuoka City and the surrounding, wonderfully scenic area. In addition, this festival also features STRANGE SEED, which is to be held from 3 May to 5 May, comprising a wide range of fringe arts events being held around the city in cooperation with Shizuoka City’s major project ON STAGE SHIZUOKA. In a nutshell, SPAC aims to present a joyous and inspiring the festival that remains deeply rooted in its home region of Shizuoka while also connecting to the wider world through theatre.
What is SPAC? Shizuoka Performing Arts Center
SPAC was founded in 1995 by the Shizuoka prefectural government and commenced its full-fledged activities in 1997 under the direction of SUZUKI Tadashi, its first General Artistic Director. As a pioneer of publicly funded performing-arts organizations in Japan, SPAC retains its own staff of actors, technical and production staff, who are based at its own venues and facilities. The mission of SPAC is not only to create original pieces, but also to invite progressive artistic companies and creators to Shizuoka and to develop human resources seeking expression through the performing arts. Since April 2007, when he was appointed as the General Artistic Director, MIYAGI Satoshi has led SPAC in a buoyant new phase of development and expansion.
Contact
SPAC – Shizuoka Performing Arts Center
2-3-1 Higashishizuoka, Suruga-ku Shizuoka City, Shizuoka 422-8019
Tel: +81-54-203-5730 Fax: +81-54-203-5732
E-mail：mail@spac.or.jp
[World Theatre Festival Shizuoka 2025]
Organized by Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), Japan Arts Council Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
Approved by Fujinokuni Arts Festival
[Mt.Fuji World Theatre Festival Shizuoka 2025]
Organized by the Committee of the Open-air Performing Arts Festival Shizuoka
