On February 21, 2022, the first activity report meeting was held online as a place to re-examine the significance and effects of "Social Grant" and share its results, future issues, and new visions. In the first part, from among past subsidized organizations, "Specified Non-Profit Organization Minna no Dance Field" and " Tokyo Soteria", and in the second part, a roundtable was held with viewers. In the first part of this report, we introduced the process by which the "Non-Profit Organization Everyone's Dance Field" expands the possibilities of co-creation to the outside world, and reports on the development of facilitators, which is one of them. Next, from the announcement of "Tokyo Soteria", we will report on the theater activities with a theater company in Bologna, Italy, where people with mental disabilities play as actors.
> Part 1: "Staying online during the COVID-19 pandemic" (Part 1): Everyone's Dance Field is here
Courtesy of Arte e Salute Onlus
Speakers: Sayaka Tsukamoto, Shiho Hasegawa, Naoyuki Matsumoto
Spreading Mental Health through Japan-Italy Co-Production of Theater
Tokyo Soteria is a non-profit organization that provides welfare services, mainly to help people with mental disabilities live in the community. "Soteria" means "gift for recovery" in Greek. It has the meaning of the relationship between people and society and the value of peace of mind and body.
Tsukamoto Sayaka of the secretariat explains the background. There is shocking data that Japan has the highest number of psychiatric hospital beds per population in the world. "Of the 270,000 people hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals, about 70,000 are so-called "social hospitalizations," meaning that they are hospitalized because they have no place in their community and no place to return. Italy, on the other hand, abolished psychiatric hospitals in 1978, and supports persons with disabilities through community mental health services and other community services. So I thought what kind of services could be provided so that people with disabilities could live as a matter of course in Japan, and I went to study the case of Italy as a city exchange project."
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It was during this time that he met the theater group Arte et Salute. It is a professional theater troupe of patients from the Bologna Mental Health Department of the Emilia-Romagna State Community Health Organization in Italy. In 2018, he invited the troupe to Japan and performed the troupe's representative work "the persecution and assassination of Jean-Paul Maller performed by the patients of the Sharanton asylum under the direction of Marquis de Sade" in Nagoya, Hamamatsu and Tokyo, where it was well received. He also holds lectures in Fukushima, Fukui, Kyoto, Kagoshima and Chiba.
Courtesy of Tokyo Soteria
After that, in October 2020, the stage of the Arte e Salute Theater Company was planned to be re-performed as a "Japan-Italy Joint Theater Project for the Mentally Disabled People", in which Japan mentally disabled people and supporters will also be added, and the Tokyo performance will be applied for and accepted in the "Social Grant" of the second term of 2020. In the fall of the previous year, he had auditioned and started rehearsing, but was forced to cancel the performance due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead, it was changed to a preliminary plan in which lectures and other events will be held by connecting Osaka, Nagoya, Hamamatsu, Fukushima, Gunma and Bologna online, with the main venue being the Italian Culture Hall - Tokyo. Under the title of "Mental Health, Theater and Expression Activities in COVID-19 for World Mental Health Day: Towards 2021" a talk session was held on human connections, the power of art, and challenges and hopes for the future of mental health that are required in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic.
演劇公演は2021年10月に延期することとし、令和2（2020）年度第2期に改めて申請し採択される。しかし依然として続くコロナ禍で演劇公演は断念せざるを得なかった。代わりに、『マラー／サド』の演目自体は変えずに、アルテ・エ・サルーテ劇団と日本の出演者の共同で映像作品に仕上げ、演劇公演を予定していた国内各地で上映会と出演者らによるトークセッションを実施した。「芸術文化による社会支援助成」の対象事業として実施したイタリア文化会館での上映会は、感染防止対策のため客席数は限られたものの、定員以上の来場希望者があり大盛況となった。映像はその後編集し、多言語化してバリアフリー字幕と手話通訳付きで現在「THEATRE for ALL」で配信中。
Courtesy of Tokyo Soteria
Maller/Thad is based on a play by Peter Weiss that premiered in 1964, and was adapted into a 1967 film by director Peter Brook. Marquis de Sade, imprisoned in France's Charanton Asylum, uses patients to tell the drama of Jean-Paul Maller, a French revolutionary leader who was later stabbed to death in a bathtub by Charlotte Corday. Actors who have actually experienced alienation from society due to mental disorders express this story with artistic sensitivity and skillful acting skills on the stage of the Arte et Salute Theatre Company.
As fellow actors, not in a "supporting/being" relationship
Naoyuki Matsumoto, who worked as the project's secretariat and also participated as a performer, talked about the difficulties of training during the COVID-19 pandemic. "We repeatedly planned and made changes, sorting out what we could do online and what we had to do in person, and checking the infection situation as we went along. There were times when our opinions clashed and we almost got discouraged, but we never gave up and kept talking, which deepened our ties with our colleagues in Japan and Italy." he said. Through theatrical activities, they were able to connect with each other not as "supporters" and "patients (users)," but as people who stand on the same stage, who go through the same exercises, and as fellow actors.
Matsumoto continues. "There is a cage on the stage, and you don't know whether you are inside or outside the cage on the stage or in the audience seats. On stage, everyone is a performer and has the freedom to express emotions without suppressing them. Looking at the audience seats from the stage, I think the audience is in a cage. "This work places a lot of importance on freedom, so there was a sense of meaning and hope in performing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when action and expression are restricted."
Credit: NPO Tokyo Soteria
Tsukamoto says, "I feel that if citizens are exposed to mental health through artistic activities, the connection will expand more naturally." I was happy to see many volunteers, especially students. Shiho Hasegawa, also of the secretariat, said, "Through the collaboration between welfare workers and performing arts workers, I think we were able to learn from each other differences in language and perspectives. In addition, since we formed teams for each region, we were not too focused on Tokyo, and each region took the initiative and developed." It is attracting attention not only from the medical and welfare sectors but also from the art sector. "While there are several theater groups in Japan made by people with disabilities, I would like to consider what this project can do only in the future." he said.
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After the report, viewers asked, "What changes have you experienced through the play?". Matsumoto replied, "We've established a relationship where we can support each other as theater friends." "This activity is not for the purpose of rehabilitation, but for the purpose of becoming an actor and producing good works. In the process, I had the experience of being able to express freely on the stage the emotions that had been suppressed/suppressed." he added.
Credit: NPO Tokyo Soteria
Hasegawa replied, "I think it's meaningful to learn about acting, roles, gender, and other ways of living, regardless of whether you have a disability or not." For Tsukamoto, it was impressive to see his supporters changing.
Facilitator Tomonori Ogawa, who was listening to the event, commented that the event reconfirmed "recovery through the arts." In the future, Tokyo Soteria will continue its approach of returning long-term psychiatric hospital patients to the local community, while exploring the next development through theatrical expression activities. I look forward to the day when the Arte et Salute troupe from Italy and the Japanese cast will perform together in Mallah/Sado.
(Reporting and writing by Yuri Shirasaka)
NPO Tokyo Soteria
2009年設立。精神障害があっても地域の中で暮らせる社会を目指し、障害者総合支援法に基づく障害福祉サービス事業等を行う。グループホーム、地域活動支援センター、就労継続支援Ａ型事業所、ホームヘルプステーションなどを運営。同時に、精神障害についての普及啓発事業にも力を入れ、講演活動などを精力的に行う。日伊共同就労支援プロジェクトなどの各種事業をイタリアのエミリア・ロマーニャ州立地域保健連合機構ボローニャ精神保健-依存症局と協働し、活動している。
https://soteria.jp/
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Social Grant Grant results
- FY 31 (2019) 2nd Term "Arte e Salute "Malla/Sado": Japan-Italy Joint Theater Project for the Mentally Disabled"
- FY 2020 2nd Fiscal Period "Arte e Salute "Malla/Sado": Japan-Italy Joint Theater Project for the Mentally Disabled"
Social Grant
A program to support "Activities that allow people who have limited opportunities to experience and participate in art due to their social environment to engage in art experiences, such as appreciation and creation, and to exercise their creativity and enrich their imagination." and "An artistic activity that sets social issues based on one's own awareness of issues and works to solve them with a long-term perspective while collaborating with various people and organizations" for organizations working in Tokyo.
The system was launched in FY 27 (2015), and since FY 28 (2016), applications have been made twice a year. It has supported more than 100 projects. It is not just "art for art's sake" or "art that is useful to society," but it is trying to support activities that propose and materialize a new way of art in which society and creative activities are inseparable in a way that has never been done before, so to speak, "the third art."