Collaboration with Coventry City of Culture announced
Entelechy Arts is delighted to announce a new international collaboration to create a theatrical experience for Coventry City of Culture 2021
Next year, Entelechy Arts will be creating a new performance with Japanese theatre company オイ・ボッケ・シ (OiBokkeShi) for Coventry City of Culture 2021.
Theatre of Wandering is a performance that draws upon a community’s experiences and reflections about what it is to live with dementia.
It will be a new production created with and for the residents of a neighbourhood in the suburbs of Coventry. Shop keepers, care workers, school children and residents of all ages will work together to uncover and share a community’s hidden stories about their community and one of our society’s greatest challenges.
The production is based on ‘Night Never Gets Darker’, a performance directed by Naoki Sugawara for OiBokkeShi, which means ‘Ageing, dementia, death’. Entelechy Arts Associate David Slater saw a performance in Japan and wanted to find a way to bring it to the UK.
“OiBokkeShi’s work powerfully invites communities to reflect and share on their often hidden experiences of living with dementia. Now more than ever we need to explore the delicate edge between care and creativity in building richer and more inclusive communities.” David Slater
This collaboration continues various exciting artistic collaborations with Japanese artists, most recently Saitama Arts Theatre’s Gold performers featuring in London performances of BED with Entelechy Arts Elders’ Company and David Slater creating a version of BED in Greater Tokyo. In 2021, Christopher Green’s The Home (co-commissioned by the Albany and Entelechy Arts) will be touring to Japan, also to be directed by Naoki Sugawara. It also continues wider conversations and shared learning about art and care, across cultures, as explored at the Age Against the Machine’s symposium on Creative Ageing in the City.
“When people wander, they initially have a purpose but they suddenly forget what it was. The town you were familiar with gradually changes. You start to see people you don’t know and the places that you thought you knew suddenly become unfamiliar. To experience the world the way that those with dementia see it you need to feel something that goes beyond space-time…I thought it would be interesting to create a theatrical experience where for those walking through the city, the boundary between fiction and reality becomes blurred.” Naoki Sugawara.
Theatre of Wandering will be performed in Coventry in Autumn 2021.
A Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 and Entelechy Arts co-production, in association with OiBokkeShi.
オイ（Oi）・ボッケ（Bokke）・シ（Shi）
オイ・ボッケ・シ (Oi Bokke Shi)
