The Japan story continues - following our visit to Bird Theatre in 2023, they invited us to collaborate on adding a Japanese themed scene to The Village and The Road. This new scene was based on research on rural depopulation that Tom Pow did whilst we were in Japan in 2023, and online research with Bird Theatre’s help across 2024. We wrote new music to accompany Tom’s new words, and took the adapted show back to Japan in September 2024. This time we performed it at Bird Theatre, and at Cheriver Hall in Shimane prefecture. Tom’s research also resulted in him writing a book of poems, ‘Ghosts at Play’, which was printed in a dual language format, English and Japanese, and which we launched with an event at the British Council in Tokyo while we were there.
As well as performing The Village and The Road, The Galloway Agreement did some concerts, and were lucky enough to also do a wonderful collaborative concert with two Japanese musicians, KITSU Kaori (shamisen) and HIGUCHI Keizan (shakuhachi).
The trip was funded by Creative Scotland, The British Council, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and a Tottori City Grant for Arts and Culture Projects.
The Japan story is not yet over! We are planning a future collaboration, watch this space!
Some photos of the 2024 trip will appear here soon...
First visit to Japan:
In September 2023, The Galloway Agreement and Tom Pow took their theatre show about rural depopulation, The Village and The Road, to Japan to perform at Bird Theatre, Shikano, as part of the Bird Theatre Festival.
Below is a gallery of photographs from the trip, and some translated comments from the post show talks, which contain many memories of rural life in Japan.
The talks are here:
This trip was partly funded by Creative Scotland, for which we are very grateful.
