David Slater our Artistic Director is spending two months in Japan with the Saitama Gold Theatre Company making a version of BED. The Japan Times newspaper has written about the collaboration.

“Britain is quite advanced in arts activities for the elderly, but they were amazed by the quality of ‘Richard II,’” says Sachiko Ukegawa, World Gold Theater’s program director.

In the years that followed, Ukegawa and Watanabe went to the U.K. to check out several different elderly-related projects.

“We found there were so many approaches being taken to get old people into theaters, from holding tea parties to dance circles, pottery groups and so on,” Watanabe says.

David Slater is the artistic director for the elderly-focused London-based Entelechy Arts Company. He met both Watanabe and Ukegawa on one of their trips to Britain, and is now in Saitama working with six Gold Theater actors on a piece by his own company titled “Bed,” which will feature at the upcoming World Gold Theater festival.

Mitsuyo Obuchi, says she is enjoying working with Slater.

“He has created a really detailed character for me and the process has been very interesting,” the 72-year-old says. “Yet I’m still a bit scared to be in a bed alone in the street.”

So why is she doing it?

“Well, when I was working with Ninagawa he always taught us to cast off our old skin and start again from scratch with an open mind,” she says. “I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, but he said nothing of value would come from staying in our own small shells.”

“If you give people support and a space, they are very powerful performers, storytellers and communicators,” he says.

Excerpt of a news piece by NOBUKO TANAKA, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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