Interview with Toshiki Okada (2011)

Could you tell us more about the specific challenges you faced and the methods you developed for your latest piece, The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise?

Critics remarked about my previous performances, such as Five Days in March, that they were cubist. For the past years I have been thinking, if they are cubist, then what could be the next step? And then one day I had the idea that Robert Rauschenberg's Combine Paintings might be it. I thought that if I wouldn't stop at constructing a performance around different points of view (if that's cubism) but would also combine different kinds of materials this could certainly be considered as taking the next step. However, in the context of performance, what does it mean to speak about different materials? For a long time, I couldn't figure this out. Oil paint applied to a plane canvas and stuffed animals are clearly two different materials. But the performers' bodies are strictly speaking all made of the same material (namely protein). However, when I started working on The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise, I had the feeling I knew how to translate this idea into a workable method. I figured that if the actors would not all establish a relationship with or exercise influence on the audience in the same way, but would instead all consciously do this differently, then the materiality of each actor would be different and a Combine Painting style performance would be possible.

More specifically concerning the text of this piece, what were the starting points, influences, themes...?

I wanted to reflect on what the everyday means to us. I portrayed everyday life before. One could say that I always portray the everyday. However, I never used everyday life as the main theme of a performance. I think this is the first time. This is also my most fantastic play so far and I have the feeling this is precisely because of its theme; although that sounds contradictory.

You already created an impressive body of work, and the Brussels' audience has been able to follow your trajectory over the years. Where would you locate The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise within this trajectory? How does it relate to your other performances? And why? And, more specifically concerning your latest work, how did you move from We Are the Undamaged Others to this piece?

In The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise, I intend to explore the idea of not representing something directly on stage but instead letting it clearly come together in the minds of the spectators, like I did in We Are the Undamaged Others, but this time in a more casual way. Also, I wanted to for once free myself from the stoic attitude of using only the theatrical language I developed myself and to try to freely use other vocabularies, including borrowed ones, in this piece as well. I am also ambivalent towards the result. I even considered that it would be better to stick with the typical chelfitsch style after all. But I also think that by being more free I was able to create a more open piece. In fact, We Are the Undamaged Others, which was created in a very stoic way, and The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise, which I made in a more casual manner, make a good pair. It's not about which is the best. I intend to create other plays in the future using multiple different criteria and going back and forth between them. And I would like to make the swing of this movement as large as possible.

How should we understand the title of your latest piece?

Galapagosization (Galapagos Syndrome) was a bit of a hot topic in Japan in recent years. The term initially referred to the phenomenon that electronics made in Japan answer to such specific standards and are often times so specialized that they can only be used on the Japanese market. However, its use has become slightly broader and it now pertains to the uniqueness of Japanese culture in general. It is derived from the endemic ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands. So the words of a Giant Tortoise also mean ‘of the Japanese'. Though I am not sure if Japanese culture is even Galapagos-like or unique. The words Sonic Life are also linked with this Tortoise. In Japan there is a famous legend called Urashima Taro. It goes like this: A long time ago there was a man named Urashima who rescued a turtle from kids who were torturing it. The next day, a giant turtle came to express its gratitude to Urashima. It put the man on its back, took him to the paradise in the sea and invited him to a banquet. Urashima enjoys his time there, but when he returns home, he learns that hundreds of years have passed...

Interview by Christophe Slagmuylder
Translation: Sara Jansen