chelfitsch
Five Days in March and Air Conditioner
Thu, Feb 12–Sat, Feb 14, 2009 | 8:00PM
Performance Space
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Rising Japanese theater ensemble chelfitsch takes its name from a baby's mispronunciation of "selfish." The pun reflects playwright and director Toshiki Okada's view of his generation's failure to cope with coming of age. Already a hit at major international festivals, the company is one of the most talked about groups to emerge from Japan's vital theatrical scene. Its style will surely appeal to fans of U.S.–based theater innovators such as Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Young Jean Lee, and Richard Maxwell.
Set during the days immediately before the U.S.A.'s "shock and awe" bombing of Iraq in March 2003, Five Days in March projects subtle universal truths while delivering an incisive and deftly anticlimatic portrait of the irony, obliviousness, and impotence of youth culture in Japan. The show's premise involves two young hipsters meeting and hooking up at a Tokyo rock show for a one night stand that evolves into five days of sex, drinking, and ennui. In Okada's deceptively slight narrative, a vast catalog of sly, fidgety gestures take on choreographic scope.
Air Conditioner: Sat, Feb 14 | 7 PM
Performance Space
Ticket holders for Five Days can also take in Air Conditioner, a 25-minute companion piece. Condensing Okada's off-kilter gestural choreography into a subtly humorous pas de deux, it features a young "salaryman" office worker and his clumsy interactions with a female colleague and potential object of desire. (The work's selection as a finalist for a significant dance prize in Japan stirred up quite a bit of controversy.) Be sure to request your ticket to the one-time performance of Air Conditioner (Saturday at 7 PM) when you purchase your tickets to any performance of Five Days.
Note: Five Days in March is intended for mature audiences. Both showas are performed in Japanese with English subtitles.
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Additional image info: "Five days in March," as presented in May 2007 at Kaaitheater studio (Brussels)
