Japan is an island nation. Because islands are isolated by the ocean and at a distance from the “center,” they possess their own particular semantic fields of gravity. The isolation of an island expresses the cruel conditions for survival for modern people. This piece uses rigorous and comical physical acts, strange stage devices, and a live soundscape that resonate with the human voice to portray a solitary island woman’s raw sense of isolation (her “island-ness”). This play focuses on all the obscure individuals who are oppressed by the tyranny of the “center” and go on to die of old age in solitude, never able to resist.
An old woman on a small island. Surrounded by the sea, few people visit there. The woman, with her arms and legs shaking, tries to create a place to give herself peace of mind. Inside the small island, she seeks for her own “island” —a minimum shelter from the outside world seems to be her only desire. The “island”, however, is never balanced, never stable. This is a show of a body working against a weird swinging “island”.

Direction: Yasuki Fujita
Text: Shino Kuraishi
Performance: Tomoko Ando
Sound, performance: Yutaka Fukuoka
Visual, performance: Nao Nishihara