English Vers. of interview with H.Ohashi, AmA founder.

August 12th, 2019
Interview with Hiroshi Ohashi, Representative Asia meets Asia
Proto Theater, Tokyo by Hiroshi Hasebe

Translated by Harada Takumi and Dumay Solinggay

How AmA started

I have been doing expressions beyond genre, nationality, and language with Theater DAM for a long time. There was a time that I collaborated with artists from Canada, South Korea, and the USA. The Korean who was invited for collaboration invited me to their country. That’s how I joined “Solo International Theater Festival held in Suwon City, South Korea in 1996. I had an encounter with a member of a theater group. I told him casually, “I have my studio, (Proto Theater) in Tokyo. I wonder if you would like to come to Tokyo for a performance.”.

Kenichi Takeda who had been making music for DAM Theater suggested inviting his friend who is doing advocacy work for the democratization in Hong Kong. Their group is Theater Clash. “Let’s do it with three theater groups: Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong,” he said. We started that way.We participated in the Avignon Theater Festival in 1997, one of the largest theater festivals in the world, held in South France every summer. The Festival was running five or six programs a day. They were switching from one theater group to another. I was inspired by this system. I thought that it might be a good idea to watch three programs on the same day. Usually in a festival, we would watch one performance and then another the next day. Some theater groups would return home as soon as they finish their performance. I thought that a festival where participants could watch one another during their stay, hold symposiums, and share their process would be good.
We also discussed what title was good for the Festival. I telephoned a friend in New York. Then I was simply told “Asia meets Asia may be good”. So we started to use this name.

Holding a program with intermission takes three or four hours. We had three programs a day. It was a little bit reckless especially in such a small space. Now, a lot of overseas companies come to small theaters, however at that time it was a rare case. I suppose there had not been many chances to encounter companies from abroad in such a small space. Therefore, the feedback from the audience was very good. I was thinking of not doing it again. But I was told by everybody, “Please do one more next year”. We invited four companies from abroad - troupes from India, Malaysia and so on. We also invited four Japanese troupes. We had a festival with eight troupes participating in 1998.

I grew up in Tokyo and was influenced by Western culture, honestly speaking. But as I started encountering theater people from South Korea and Hong Kong with AmA, I began to realize the fact that I haven’t known Asian culture even though we are neighbors. I was shocked to get culture shock. My interest in culture was completely converted towards Asia. Interest on Western culture was more prevalent then. Those days, football teams and tourism had been growing in Asia. But I realized that Asian culture had not been paid that much attention at all.
Then I became interested to learn about mainland Asia. And instead of inviting the same theater group, I thought of inviting theater practitioners from different cities. We invited practitioners from the mainland and went westward. Since 1997, it had been a little difficult to do it every year, but we were able to hold it biannually. On the sixth time, it finally reached Syria. During that time we have already invited theater people from around 19 cities in Asia. We also started to get invited - like in Jakarta in the east, Syria in the west, and Kyrgyzstan, India, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in Central Asia.

I am basically an artistic director rather than a producer. So it was more important for me to continue collaboration with people from different countries than to continue inviting as a producer's job does. Since it was also important to create a production together rather than just to appreciate one another, we stopped the festival in the form of invitation after 2011. We shifted to creating Asia meets Asia as collaboration.

Troubles met
In the past, when there was no e-mail yet, we used to send a fax of about ten sheets of scheme documents at dawn because of the time difference. It would take three or four hours to get it to the person. It was also not easy to send money abroad. When I sent airfare to India for five people, we needed to send about 7 million yen. When I went to the Japanese branch of the Bank of India to try to transfer money, the bank staff said I shouldn't send it. I was told that the system was bad and I wouldn't know where the money was going. There were two large Japanese banks in India, but both of them said the same and did not process the money transfer.

I knew their account information, but I couldn't send money. When I went to the post office and asked for a registered post I learned it was better not to do so. Then, when I asked how I was going to send it, I was told to send cash by ordinary mail. It was dangerous to send 7 million yen at once, so I sent two halves to them. I was introduced with the Indian people only by fax. So I didn't have any guarantee that they would come. When they arrived in Narita Airport, I was shocked. That was the first time I was surprised by such things.

When I invited people from Afghanistan, I sent the money the same way. When they were about to leave from there, I got a phone call that said, “I am at the airport, but I don't have a seat”. I asked why they had no seats since I sent them air tickets. They said “I can’t fly since I have no seat”. We had already prepared printing flyers and making a program, but we could not do anything without him. I asked him if at any rate there was an airplane coming to Tokyo. He found a flight via Bombay to Tokyo and he bought the ticket. But in fact, if someone else pays higher money at the airport, they'll get a seat. I looked at it and found that there was a big earthquake in Pakistan at that time. There were many people coming from Kabul, Pakistan so the seats seemed to be taken for rescue. The Afghan researcher who was coming to see the performance said, "It is like inviting people out of the battlefield. You'd better think that it's better that they could just come first”. In Japan, I thought that if I bought tickets, I could fly on the plane. But when I got into the dilemma of the battleground, I didn't know what would happen.

Sometimes the participants would request larger accommodation, among other things. Of course, they were all cooperative in other aspects. But we have a small budget with quite a number of people. If we were to prepare a new room, we would have difficulty running the festival. We sometimes faced those problems when they arrive in Japan. But basically, everyone was cooperative. They were punctual and they clearly spoke along with our intention at the symposium. I think we could communicate with one another despite the “unknown-ness” and with our cultural differences.

There were participants from Islamic countries and we had to consider what they would eat and drink. But when we invite them, they drink, they dance. Everybody is an individual person. Some would say “I don't drink because I am Islam,” others, “I drink as shelving Islam because I am abroad”. They could choose freely as a person. I learned that being Muslim does not mean having a single Islam perspective.

How to make the theme

The festivals didn't have any particular theme. It was a space for participants to bring about the problems of their country. For example, the fear of a change in their own culture because of globalization. Iran has a lot of censorship - how they practice their freedom while avoiding censorship is also another case.
When we moved to collaborative creation, we had no title. It was an improvised approach for the people who gathered to create. But along the way, I started to come up with a title. The first title was “Lost Home” which became the starting point of "Drifting". Then the next was “Return", and then “Hope”. I started to make a theme since that was a trilogy. At first it was improvisation, but when we are creating each piece, the preparation becomes more important. So I told the theme in advance, and we collect the text, performance and ideas based on the theme. The time of preparation is the most important, but it is also important to increase the motivation for participants.

Often, the question is: What’s your criteria for a company or a participant? This is basically the kind of person who is introduced by the person invited before. I am inviting groups who have grassroots relationships. There may be Western-style pop-culture expressions in every part of the world, but many of the groups that we invite are mostly anti-dominant and critical to the system. There were many expressions which gazed how freedom should be in each country. It was interesting in a sense. For example, the situation of each country would become transparent with such - along with the collapse of culture. In the case of Syrian people, it was a very strong expression that represented the state of the prison.

How to create the performance

It's only less than a week when we get together each time. Most of the time, we meet one another for the first time. The first two days would be an oral expression of the material and ideas that they brought. The next two days would be for the presentation of their performance, and expression using body. And then I'll put out the structure and make a stream. Then, in the last two days, the flow is strengthened. It's a thrilling rehearsal.

We have to make a good flow based on the structure table. The first oral presentation takes a lot of time, often with an interpreter. For example, there are people from Afghanistan and people from Chinese speaking countries. When I speak in Japanese, the interpreter translates it to English, then to Dari, then to Cantonese and Mandarin. Often, when I speak in Japanese, the interpreter translates it in a whispering voice. And when there is a question from it, the whispering voice comes back to me. It would take ten minutes or sometimes one hour, while it takes one minute in Japanese alone. We endured the process. We all understand that we have to go beyond that. We are not irritated with the difficulty of communication. It's a process that takes time.

However, when it is about a scene of performance, the translator sometimes becomes an obstacle. When performers would shift to physical expression after understanding the frame by words and then I say, “This is different”. It sometimes sounds like totally denying performers. It's true that we have the “Goodness of Not Understanding''. I think this is the most important thing for today. Everyone gradually understands that they don't have to understand everything, they don't have to understand half. It's interesting to see and listen to what they're doing, and we'll be able to appreciate it.

Even if you don't understand the meaning, there is a minimum code of a person with a body. It becomes a code that allows you to share and understand your body. When you are hit you feel pain, when you are glad your body relaxes, and when you concentrate you become tense. In this respect, you find out the most important thing for communication. What we are appealing to exists inside the person. Initially, the audience had interest in it. If you have understood it, then you can't go any further than your understanding. If you don't get the question mark of what's going on there, you will not be interested in each other. However, when you end up by understanding in your head that “it's interesting. I can see the difference like that”. When you only understand the “difference”, you don't have any growth. You don't go forward from where you understand the “difference”. That's why it's important for “not understanding “ to become a motivation.

Cross-cultural exchange

When we talk about mutual cultural exchange, we understand each other's differences, but I don't think that's how we really understand. It's also understanding the “incomprehensible”. I think that's the most important thing. For example, even among Japanese people, you eliminate things that you don't understand, right? In our current popular culture we tend to eliminate the “things we don't understand” and the “others we don't understand”. This way is preventing cross-cultural exchanges. It starts from the idea that “it's OK that I don't understand” rather than the attitude of “trying to understand”. If you're going to try to understand it, and you'll never understand it, it's already an exclusion. Understanding doesn't mean “ending with being able to understand'', but it should be like “going forward into the incomprehensible with understanding”. Otherwise, the act of “understanding” becomes the purpose. I think that persistently receiving and responding to one another in that way is important.

Relationships with other people are important before cross-cultural exchange. Cross-cultural exchanges can also be found in difference among generation, genre or environment. After all, even though they understand the language, they get divorced and they fight. I don't think understanding language is necessarily the factor of communication. On the other hand, there are many things that benefit from not knowing the language.

I think cross-cultural exchanges are the fashion of the times, after all. The Olympics is held, and in the age of globalization, companies understand foreign cultures and bring capital abroad. Cross-cultural exchanges have always existed from a long time ago. I don't think it's just beginning. I think it's a request of time, and it feels like a lot of fun with free feeling. There is no urgent-ness of life in the place where each culture has a difference, so you have to understand it.

This time, we're talking about "refugees" and it's important to understand cross-cultural understanding in the context of life-related situations. If the stage of cross-cultural understanding is only concerned with going sightseeing to enjoy shopping things, then it’s only a device for transaction. Understanding others of a different culture in the real sense is living together with them without getting rid of them. And it seems that the way of intercultural exchange in Japan is not done in real terms. In other words, I have to gaze at the level of life and death, not just to understand other people. This time, I have become more and more strongly aware of it by taking refugees as a theme.

I went to New York subsidized around 1987. I was asked who I wanted to see in the area, so I asked to see Ellen Stewart, founder of the famous La Mamma Experiment Theater known in Japan as the head temple of avant garde theater. So when I saw her and said to her I wanted to do an international collaboration, she laughed. She said that in New York everyone is in an international collaboration. I was so shocked by it. What a delay it is in Tokyo! In short, the idea of cross-cultural exchange is already going intercultural. In other words, it's a cross-cultural exchange even among Japanese people. Even though a foreigner is concerned about it, it should be about the differences among human beings, but not differences in language. In New York, everyone speaks English, but there are people from different countries, so everyone else is different. I realized that cross-cultural exchange was not the difference between country and language, but people. I thought it's the basic idea.

About words/languages
When you make a performance with performers speaking different languages like Chinese, English, Thai, and so on, the question on how you communicate with their words on the stage arises. Do you put subtitles or give simultaneous interpretation? We stopped inserting subtitles. You don't have to put subtitles for the audience to understand. Understanding in this matter is listening to what people are saying in their native language and listening to what you don't understand. It starts with an interest in the rhythm, the intonation of the voice and receiving the un-understandable. Since we distribute the meaning of the words in a pamphlet after each performance, we are letting the audience experience it without knowing. This is so they can receive the un-understandable. In the common international theater exchange program project, subtitles are inserted. But it's very uncomfortable for people in the field of theater like us. Oh! they make the audience understand. I'm afraid audience would not see what's happening now.

If you look at people who are appealing for something for a while, you can see the motivation of their existence. I think this is important. We are sometimes told that we are unkind to the audience. And they call out the subsidy. I said that you have to do something to benefit the public. When I think about the benefit, it's not only about understanding the words in our head. I think about the way of exchange in international theater arts. Of course, in the symposium, there is an interpretation but when you talk about the theater art exchange, it is not always about understanding what the performer has to say, but acknowledging the existence and accepting the unknown that each other has. If you try to make the stage of international exchange based on the understanding of meaning, theater would be for understanding language, which means that it is only a translation. When I see a lot of such stage, I feel lonely.

For example, when everyone understands through words, the performance would be bound by words. If you do that, there would be much less space for something unexpected or accidental coming out. With unexpected timing, something like “You do that!?” unconsciously come out. It's interesting. If you understand by word, it becomes the same plot. So it becomes the same progression with the same timing. But if the performers, who don't completely understand by words, have the free space for interpretation, the unknown factor remains inside them, something unexpected comes out and the stage becomes vivid. More than just a rehearsal of Japanese people, when foreign performers join, the unexpected energy and the unplanned excitement comes up. Where there is contingency, I think there is a fascination that life comes out.

Life-size body across various genres

Members of Asia meets Asia are actors, contemporary dancers, Butoh dancers, poets, and street performers. When it comes to experiences, some are professionals, and others are almost amateurs. The code that you're working with is the life-size body, the body of the person you've been here before expressing, and that's the starting point. Even the person who has many experiences takes it as a style. The performer thinks as a person starting out of a life-size body. The company DA M, which I have been doing since the old days, has such a way of thinking and technique.

In reality, if you're told that you should make a single performance in six days, I don't think you can. But since we are always starting from a “life-size body” even people from different genres can suddenly come together. In that sense, the participants are very happy. You can wash what you have been doing from zero again. So I am appealing to people in many genres "Let's start from the life-size body." I think what we want to show is not something technically good. I want to strongly express the intention to communicate, the will of communication.

One performer can be good at acting, and poets may not be able to match his/her techniques. For example, during meals there are some people who use a fork, and others use chopsticks. But if you don't have anything, you'll eat it with your hands. If we take the level of expression down, we can enjoy meals together. Whatever the style of eating, we enjoy eating. We enjoy singing. Even though we don't sing well, if we share rhythm and melody together, we can share a song. So we can develop it like that we can respond to others listening to their voice during acting. By taking the level to zero, good and bad are gone.

We criticize the approach of showing high-level techniques to show the audience good skills. For example, if the old man's singing of a song at the village's festival is good, it's good not because he sings well, but what the old man has been cultivating is good. However, the well-done things that come out of the popular media are sophisticated things that the capitalist society considers highly valuable. Well it's not like that. It's the wisdom of trying to communicate on each occasion, and touching the audience with each’s own voice comfortably. The technique on how to convey movement and words to the audience is cultivated in each’s daily life in his/her own country. It's how to convey to the person in front of you in a straightforward manner. If you just look into the technique you've been doing, you'll feel comfortable about pursuing your techniques rather than strength and tension in the real sense. It's OK if the audience can have empathy with it, but when you end up evaluating the quality and practice, you don't have communication. I say it's not right, because if the inclination to convey doesn't come out, it can’t be an intercultural exchange. I think if I show their skills in the form of 'good ', it seems to be out of the way.

As a player

Harada: While there are differences in personalities, customs and values, not everyone always gets together for work. In the case of Asia meets Asia, however, it is a miracle to meet together for about one month and tour abroad. Being able to meet each other on the stage is a great force for everyone to admit to each other, while the various misunderstandings are driven away. In Japan, there is an interpreter, but in the case of overseas expedition, there is sometimes no interpretation. I feel that there are things that are born in the midst of "unknown." The person may be doing what he does not feel if he understands the language.

Urgency

When I invited a group of Iraqi people, the Gulf War just ended, and there were many Iraqis who were exiled to Europe. There were also many people who had already laid their foundations in Europe. What we did at the workshop was that the Hussein government collapsed and it was in the mood of recovery. It was asked whether they would return to Iraq from Europe at that time. If they return from Europe to Iraq at that time, they may be attacked by guerrillas when they enter the desert zone from Syria. Now, would you return back risking your life? That was the subject of the workshop. It was amazing how to appeal at that time. The other participants even started to cry. The workshop has been left in mind, which presents the urgent-ness of what is being questioned in their own country. “I'm not a professional theater performer, so I can't do theatrical workshops, but I want to do the problems that I am facing now. Now, everyone is on the bus together. Someone says that it's dangerous to go further. At that time are you going to return to Europe, or do you want to continue? I want you to argue about it.” Participants will perform their actions based on their respective experiences. It was very interesting. There appears a subject that doesn't come out of a normal cross-cultural workshop.

The ultimate goal of Asia meets Asia is that we would ultimately be able to perform at Kabul in Afghanistan and Baghdad in Iraq. When I asked the Iraqi performers in the symposium, “Can we perform in Baghdad?“, I was answered “Welcome! I invite you with dinner. And then you'll have a time bomb.” When I invited a group of Afghan theater, I asked the same question, "Yes, but there's no theater, it will be on the road. And I think everyone will spit on you.” That's what it is. In other words, there's nothing to eat, no way for a theater. It was about 10 years ago, I don't think it has changed so much from then.

When to say NG

First of all, I put out the composition of the scenes and say that it's better to restrain without giving it any specific details. The second is, as Asia meets Asia advances, the central members become regular and new members come in every time. As a result, there is a time when the tension is lost due to the trust built up little by little. And then they just show acting. When I do this in less rehearsal time, I always say that this is a theater in emergencies. If there is something that you want to show, you tend to do a lot of unnecessary things, but when you're in emergencies, you can take your life and run away. I'm asking to show your life. In other words, you should firmly contain only the will of what you want to convey. You should present only that, but if you show only acting, you will not be able to do cross-cultural exchange.

You should have a sense of urgency. By looking at it, it leads to understanding other people. You have to convey something even though you don't understand it. Since “life-size body” is considered to be important, the note for acting is not to start from fixed acting. For example, to “carry a stone” and to “walk”, the skills and balance to keep life-sized acting become important, the essential movement of which the body is carrying stone and walking, not only by hand or foot. They are supposed to respond to the movement of others in daily life. But when they are not ready for it, I give them NG. In the matter of life-sized physical expression, where to bring the concentration and consciousness without style becomes important.

Conflict between countries

One time, there was a Korean actor whose approach is taking ‘nation’ as a motivation. And there was a time when cross-cultural exchange became a political struggle. However, people are friendly at the common level. They criticize the government, but they have a sense that it is different from people's level. They are not conscious of that. They don't feel that the country is being attacked by the criticism of the government.

Harada:It's clear that we are not involving the various troubling factors inside the participants on stage. You can't make things if you don't understand one another. I think most people have a strong sense of why they participated in AmA.

Initial impressions

First of all, I'm smiling. There is nothing more than talking while expressing a welcoming feeling with a smile. On the other side of it, it is an attitude that it will be alright even though I don't understand. The distance is already buried by allowing us to admit that we don't understand each other.