Ryuzanji
Company is a theatre troupe that is led by Show Ryuzanji, who is a
director and also an actor, and is a group that succeeds most legitimately,
so-called“ Angura
and shougekijou undou” (Japanese underground and small theatre movements).
In the late 60s ”Angura-small theatre movements” emerged out of
avant-garde artists as revolts to over-regimented and de-eroticized Japanese
Society of post World War Ⅱ.
At the golden age of Angura-small theatre movements, Show Ryuzanji joined
“Joukyou-Gekijou” (Joukyou Theatre) which was led by Juro Kara and then
“Waseda Show Gekijou” (Waseda Small Theatre) which was led by Tadashi
Suzuki. In 1970 Ryuzanji founded his own company ”Engeki Dan” (Theater
Troupe) and he has been a most active and leading director of the Second
Angura generation.
In
1984, Ryuzanji founded a new company “Ryuzanji Company” to get rid of
boundaries between small theatres and develop a Japanese theatre circle.
Ryuzanji
company has been producing a number of performances, using talents from
different genres; classics, moderns, dances, musics, west and east etc.
While we make new productions collaborating with rising playwrights, we try
to adapt Japanese Classical plays like Noh and Kabuki to modern plays. We
also have a repertory of Shuji Terayama’s play, a distinguished Japanese
playwright of experimental theatre. We also believe that theater can exist
and can be performed anywhere; we have performances not only in the
buildings that are meant to be theatres, but also do outdoor plays and
street plays.
Ryuzanji
Company has been active internationally. In 1991, we performed “Ryuzanji
Macbeth” in South Korea. In year 2000 we performed Shuji Terayama’s play
,“Educating Mad Persons (Doll’s House) ” in Canada and got awarded the
grand prix ”Best of Fringe” at the Victoria’s Fringe International
Theatre Festival. We
have performed “Educating Mad Persons” also in Egypt,
Korea, China, Russia, Taiwan and Canada, over 33 cities in the world.
Our
motto is “Dancing,
Singing and Loving”, and we are ready to go anywhere in the world with our
performances.
