FESTIVAL/TOKYO

Dance revolutionary Jérôme Bel's masterpiece comes to Japan

Jérôme Bel always directs his political and critical gaze onto the medium of dance itself. His foremost work is "The Show Must Go On", now brought to Japan in a localized version co-presented by the Saitama Arts Theater.

In Japan Bel has previously staged "Shirtology" in Kyoto and Yokohama (The International Arts Festival in
Kanagawa) (2000), and the collaborative "Pichet Klunchun and Myself" at the Yokohama Triennale (2008), and also "3Abschied" with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the Saitama Arts Theater (2010). Now comes Bel's long-awaited
and most representative piece, staged in a special Japan version. Since its premiere in the Theatre de la Ville in
Paris in 2001 it has reverberated around the world wherever it is shown. Staged in over 50 cities and accepted into
the repertoire of the Lyon Opera, it won a Bessie Award in New York in 2005.

An ironic take on dance, theatre and modern movement

Out of all of Bel's work the most notorious is "The Show Must Go On", experiencing which always creates
controversy, along with confusion, hope and shock among the audience.

At the front of the stage a DJ plays a set made up of world-famous pop songs chosen by Bel from the Eighties and
after. As the first track, "Tonight", plays there is a blackout. With the next song, "Let the Sunshine In", the stage is lit up again. From then the performers dance to the songs - the Beatles, David Bowie, Queen, Broadway musicals -
and audiences across the globe have at times joined in with laughter or even dancing themselves.

The "choreography" that an audience expects from a stage work is not present. The anti-spectacle performance
happening on stage, however, is Bel's antithesis of capitalism, symbolized by the pop songs, that has manufactured
and circulated signs and institutionalized physical movement. It might well be fun but the work is in fact directing
ironic and sincere questions at the audience. After the experience they all are forced to re-examine their own stere-
otypes about dance, watching a performance, and movement we come into contact with every day.

Performers recruited publicly from a range of occupations, ages and gender

For this Japanese version of "The Show Must Go On" a local cast of performers was recruited by public auditions.
Applications numbered 239, much higher than expected, from which 26 were selected in keeping with the director's wish for the cast to reflect the diversity of the city and area in which the production takes place: 13 men, 13 women, aged from 17 to 67, with backgrounds ranging from dancers to actors, housewives, and part-time workers.

Performed all over the world by all kinds of people and stirring up controversy every time, this is an unmissable
opportunity to see how the work goes down in Japan!