07 February 2022
Newsdesk
New Earth Theatre today announces Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition and Tsunagu/Connect Live, created by Kumiko Mendl and Kazuko Hohki. This exhibition and theatre production were developed in response to an oral history project launched in 2020, that conducted over 30 interviews with Japanese women living in the UK.
Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition, offers an intimate glimpse into the worlds of these women through photos, objects and audio, running at artsdepot, 13 - 19 February 2022 and London Metropolitan Archives, 28 February - 24 March 2022.
Tsunagu/Connect Live is an immersive, promenade performance using the exhibition as a set for a kaleidoscopic journey across continents and decades, inspired by the interviews running at Shoreditch Town Hall, 23 – 30 April.
Kumiko Mendl, Artistic Director of New Earth Theatre, said today, "Tsunagu/Connect has always been a passion project for me. Following the launch of the project back in 2020 and a whole pandemic later we are finally at the point we can share our discoveries. It has been an immense privilege and honour to hear the stories of our interviewees; of their hopes, ambitions, struggles and dreams and I am forever grateful for everyone’s generosity and time. I hope that by presenting a performance together with an exhibition, Tsunagu/Connect Live can literally pull the stories off the wall and make these hitherto undocumented stories from the past live today and for the future.”
Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition
artsdepot
13 - 19 February 2022
London Metropolitan Archives
28 February - 24 March 2022
Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition explores the themes of culture, relationships and belonging, revealing the joys and struggles, triumphs and hardships of creating a new life in a foreign land.
Featuring sculptural plinths specially designed to display personal objects, photos and interactive audio from the women we interviewed, a short intergenerational film of children and young people interviewing their mothers about their lives in the UK, and an invitation to leave your own story, this exhibition is an intimate glimpse into the worlds of these women and poses a vital question: “What price must we pay to create a third space, neither one nation nor the other, where we finally have room to be ourselves?”
Tsunagu/Connect Live
By Kumiko Mendl and Kazuko Hohki
Dramaturg and contributing playwright: Stewart Melton; Design: TK Hay
Shoreditch Town Hall
23 – 30 April 2022
Four Japanese women serve as tour guides on a kaleidoscopic journey across continents and decades, from Shōwa era Japan to the bedsits of 90’s London, via the Empire Windrush’s final voyage and present-day immigration nightmares.
Part exhibition and part performance, Tsunagu/Connect Live is told through a series of exhilarating and unpredictable stories that pop up in and amongst the exhibits revealing the interviewees memories, fears and aspirations. In their attempts to bridge Britain and Japan, the women reveal the complex, multi-layered reality of migrants reconciling with rootlessness.
Kazuko Hohki is a director and performer originally from Japan. Her previous theatre credits include Toothless, The Shining Princess, My Husband is a Spaceman (UK/International tour), Evidence for the Existence of Borrowers, The Great Escape – A Borrower’s Tale, You Only Live Twice (But Die Once) (Battersea Arts Centre), Kazuko Hohki’s Wuthering Heights (UK tour) and Tottenham Travesties (Birmingham Repertory Theatre). She also founded the Japanese alternative pop group Frank Chickens.
Kumiko Mendl is the co-founder and Artistic Director of New Earth Theatre, co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Japanese children’s theatre A Thousand Cranes and Artistic Associate at artsdepot. Her credits for New Earth Theatre include Dim Sum Nights, Yeh Shen and Why the Lion Danced (UK tour). Her credits as a co-director include the critically acclaimed Flight Paths (UK tour), The Last Days of Limehouse (Limehouse Town Hall) and Rashomon (Riverside Studios). She helped set up the first summer school for British East and South East Asians, New Earth Academy in 2010 to encourage more diversity in the industry.
Tsunagu/Connect was made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England. Supported by The Japan Society, Museum of London, artsdepot, London Metropolitan Archives, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Shoreditch Town Hall.
NEW EARTH THEATRE LISTINGS
TSUNAGU/CONNECT: THE EXHIBITION
artsdepot - 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, North Finchley, London N12 0GA
13 - 19 February 2022
https://www.artsdepot.co.uk/exhibition/tsunaguconnect-exhibition
Workshops:
14 February: Over 60s Workshop: Recording Your Stories
15 February: Family Workshop: Storymaking with Kazuko Hohki
London Metropolitan Archives - 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB
28 February - 24 March 2022
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives
TSUNAGU/CONNECT LIVE
Shoreditch Town Hall
23 – 30 April 2022
https://shoreditchtownhall.com/whats-on/tsunagu-connect
