Yuta Hagiwara

Director – Tokyo, Japan
Participant International Forum 2018

Yuta Hagiwara, born in Tokyo, is a director and playwright. He studied theatre history at Waseda University until 2006, then from 2007 he studied under the mime dancer Hironobu Oikawa, who collaborated with Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. After graduating, Yuta Hagiwara founded his own theatre company “Kamome Machine”. His artistic perspective focuses on the relation between society and individual body. For example, “Waiting for Godot in Fukushima” (2011) is set on a road located 20 km from Fukushima’s No.1 nuclear power plant. In this work, some actors just stand about, articulating random thoughts, whilst their bodies are surrounded by radiation. “OREGAYO” (2016) focuses on the issue of the Japanese Constitution, which the Japanese government is trying to amend. In this work, the Constitution and a famous speech made by a politician at the time it was enacted are performed and told through the performers’ bodies. In 2017, this performance was presented at the Festival Temps d’images at Cluj-Napoca.