The Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Japan will hold the opening symposium for Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 in the evening of October 8 in Kyoto. This residency program, which will explore the possibilities of criticism in culture and the arts, is the first such program to be held in conjunction with the international performing arts festival KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 (held 5-27 October). The opening symposium will focus on the current state of journalism and critique in Europe in Japan.

The opening symposium of Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 explores Japanese and European viewpoints on the current situation of journalism and critique. The first part of the symposium features renowned journalist and media activist Daisuke Tsuda, who is widely known for his critical writing about recent shifts in the Japanese and international media environment as well as for establishing his own platforms for independent journalism. In his keynote speech, Tsuda will share his perspective on the present situation of journalism and critique in Japan as well as the freedom of speech and the radicalization of the public debate.

In the second part, the symposium opens a dialogue between Tsuda and the residents from Europe, who feed in their diverse backgrounds from different cultural contexts and their individual approaches on the current challenges of critique amidst the societal situation in their countries of residence.

Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to Japan, operated by the Goethe-Institut Tokyo, and supported by KYOTO EXPERIMENT and the Saison Foundation.

The eight EU critics, selected from over 100 applicants from across the EU’s Member States, will share their expertise and experiences during this residency, and reflect together on the role of culture and art in contemporary society, as well as the importance of critique that fosters an environment for art and cultural policy. In addition to the opening symposium, there will be panel discussions with Japanese critics selected by the Saison Foundation, and a closing symposium.

Given the current lack of residencies focusing on cultural and artistic criticism in Japan, Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 seeks to explore the present and future of criticism in an international context. In recent years, the environment surrounding criticism and discourse has changed considerably. While social media has gained momentum and the expressive possibilities of digital spaces have continued to grow, newspapers and magazines, which used to serve as central platforms for criticism, are now facing a crisis of existence. Against this background, it is important to discuss the context in which culture and art criticism is situated and what possibilities it can open up.

• Opening Symposium for Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024

Title: On the Present State of Journalism and Critique

Time and date: Tuesday October 8, 19:00-21:30

Venue: Kyoto Art Center, Multi-purpose Hall

Languages: Japanese and English (simultaneous translation provided)

Speakers and panelists: Tsuda Daisuke, and eight art critics from EU Member States

Organizer: Delegation of the European Union to Japan

Supported by: KYOTO EXPERIMENT, The Saison Foundation

Residency support: Kyoto Art Center

Operated by: Goethe-Institut Tokyo

Capacity: 70 people

Admission: free of charge

To attend the event at the venue, pleas make a reservation via the link below:

https://criticinresidence2024-01.peatix.com/

The opening symposium will be live-streamed from the KYOTO EXPERIMENT’s YouTube channel.

• Schedule of Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024

The opening symposium will be followed by three panel talks in which residency participants from the EU and Japan will discuss various themes, and a closing symposium. A series of podcasts discussing the works presented at KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024 is also planned.

Languages: English and Japanese (simultaneous interpretation provided at opening symposium, consecutive interpretation provided at other events)

All events are free of charge. Advance registration required only for the opening symposium.

• Profiles of speakers and residents participating in Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024

Tsuda Daisuke (Speaker and panelist, Opening Symposium)

Journalist / Media Activist. Editor-in-Chief of Politas / Politas TV Anchor. Born in 1973 in Tokyo. Graduated from the School of Social Sciences at Waseda University. Specializes in media and journalism, technology and society, freedom of expression and online human rights violations, local issue resolution and government-run cultural projects, copyright and content business, among other topics. His major publications include “Jōhō Sensō wo ikinuku” [Surviving the Information War] (Asahi Shinsho), “Uebu de Seiji wo ugokasu!” [Shaping Politics on the Web!] (Asahi Shinsho), “Dōin no Kakumei” [The Revolution of Mobilization] (Chuko Shinsho Rakure), “Jōhō no Kokkyûhō” [Breathing Techniques of Information] (Asahi Shuppan), Twitter-sha Kairon [Twitter Debate] (Yosensha Shinsho), among others. Since September 2011, he has been distributing the weekly paid email magazine "Media no Gemba" [Media Scene].

Critics from EU Member States participating in the residency

(in alphabetical order)

Luca Domenico Artuso, Italy

Luca Domenico Artuso is an Italian PhD researcher in Theatre and Intermediality at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His research interests span from a primary focus on feminist and queer readings of Noh Theatre to Japanese Contemporary Performances. Since 2024, Luca's theatrical reviews have been published in collaboration with the Belgian magazine Etcetera, specialising in theatre and contemporary performance. Luca has previously served as specialist librarian at the Japan Foundation's Library in Rome (2019-2023). In 2018, he founded Gesshin, a Japanese Studies student association at the University of Venice (IT), a young hub for intercultural exchange between Italy and Japan. He is a member of the Performance Studies International Association.

Laura Cappelle, France

Laura Cappelle is a French arts writer, sociologist and dance scholar. She has been the Financial Times’ Paris-based dance critic since 2010 and a regular contributor to The New York Times since 2017, writing a column on French theatre as well as culture features. Additionally, she is an editorial consultant for CN D Magazine, a bilingual publication founded by France’s National Centre for Dance, and a mentor for Springback Academy, a European program for emerging dance critics. An associate professor at Sorbonne Nouvelle University since 2023, she edited an award-winning French-language introduction to dance history, Nouvelle Histoire de la danse en Occident (Seuil, 2020), and co-authored its adaptation into a graphic novel (Histoire dessinée de la danse, Seul, 2024). She is also the author of Créer des ballets au XXIe siècle (CNRS Éditions, 2024) and has been an associate researcher with the CCN-Ballet de l'Opéra national du Rhin since 2022. Photo: Jérôme Panconi.

Freda Fiala, Austria

Freda Fiala is a performance scholar and curator. She is a fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies and Chinese Studies in Vienna, Berlin, Hong Kong and Taipei. Her work focuses on performance cultures in East Asia and intercultural relations. She curated the performance festivals The Non-fungible Body? and HYBRID BODIES at OK in Linz, Austria. She has taught performance theory at the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna and has published with DISTANZ Verlag, PAJ / MIT Press, Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Taipei Performing Arts Center, among others.

Tamás Jászay, Hungary

Tamas has been writing theatre reviews since 2003. For a long time, he did not choose a single style or aesthetic, but rather wanted to understand and feel everything connected to theatre. Over the years, his position as a critic has become both simplified and complex. On the one hand, he became interested in independent theatre initiatives, reflecting the boom in independent theatre in Hungary in the 2000s. On the other hand, as a theatre historian, he recognised that this was the last chance to enter into a dialogue with the creators of the stylistic endeavours of the 1970s and 1980s. Thirdly, as a curator and festival selector, he has also come into close contact with innovative, experimental forms. He regards the participation in the residency programme as a chance to bring the knowledge he has acquired into contact with the experience of a theatre culture that is very different from the European one. Photo: Vera Éder.

Michael Lanigan, Ireland

Michael Lanigan is the arts and culture reporter with the Dublin Inquirer. His work focuses on Dublin’s visual and performing arts scenes and examines the impact of government policy on the city’s culture and heritage. He also currently hosts the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Lexicon Library’s artist interview series, Walk and Talk. His writing has appeared in Vice, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Tokyo Weekender, Metropolis, The Business Post, Huck and Totally Dublin. He lives between Dublin and Kilkenny.

Santa Remere, Latvia

Santa Remere is the new Artistic Director of the New Theatre Institute of Latvia (NTIL) and curator of the International Contemporary Theatre Festival Homo Novus. She has a background in visual communication (Waseda University, Tama Art University in Tokyo). Since 2011, Santa has regularly published art reviews and for various Latvian and Baltic magazines, mostly with a focus on cultures of young audiences, contemporary theatre, and feminist topics. She is also one of the editors of the online culture magazine Satori in Latvia. 

Aistė Šivytė, Lithuania

Aistė Šivytė is a professional critic of stage arts based in Vilnius, Lithuania. They have been working as a freelance stage arts critic for the past 5 years and written over 70 reviews and interviews about theatre, dance, contemporary circus and street theatre performances for various culture magazines, newspapers and internet portals.

Ilinca-Tamara Todorut, Romania

Tamara Todoruț is a theatre critic, scholar, dramaturg, and translator based in Romania. She earned her doctorate from Yale School of Drama, and now teaches at the Faculty of Theater and Film at Babeș-Bolyai University. Her articles can be found in journals such as Theater, TDR: The Drama Review, Performance Research, Journal of Poverty, European Stages, and Theatre History Studies. She contributed to The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, and authored Christoph Schlingensief’s Realist Theater (Routledge 2022). She regularly collaborates with theatre publications such as Scena.ro and TheTheatreTimes.com, and served as Artistic Director of the 2023 International Online Theatre Festival (IOTF).

Critics from Japan participating in the residency

(No particular order)

Ito Nabi

Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1988. She received her M.A. from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University ofTokyo in 2014, and her PhD in Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Birmingham in 2023. She has been a lecturer in the Theatre Studies course of the Division of Arts Studies, Graduate School of Humanities, Osaka University since April 2024. Her research specializes in contemporary British theater, with a particular focus on play analysis. Her current research focuses on the representation of minorities in plays and their performances. As a critic, she mainly focuses on contemporary theater and performance works and has published play reviews in such media as Shihai and THEATRE ARTS.

Yamazaki Kenta

Critic and dramaturg, born in 1983. Editor-in-chief of the theater review magazine Paperback and a regular contributor of short reviews to the web magazine artscape. Other works include “SF-like Aspects of Contemporary Japanese Theater” (S-F Magazine, Hayakawa Shobo, February 2014 to February 2017). Since 2019, he has presented stage works under the name y/n together with director/actor Kiyoshi Hashimoto. Previous works include “Coming Out Lesson” (2020) and “From Koenji, Aichi, Brazil” (2023). Photo: Yamahata Takuya.

Japanese facilitators

Ikeda Kosuke

Born 1980 in Fukuoka, Japan. Graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Interested in the existence of matter and energy surrounding human beings, he works in a variety of media, including painting and installation. He also writes for critical journals and web media, and has directed the art space Jodo Fukugoh in Kyoto since 2019. He is the author of “In Search of Lost Things: Art in an Age of Uncertainty” (Sekishobo, 2019).

Kogo Naoko

Naoko has been interpreting, translating, documenting, and critiquing dance and performance between the Kansai region and the German cultural sphere since the 1990s. Currently in the Arts and Media course of the Graduate School of Humanities at Osaka University, she researches stage dances from over 100 years ago from perspectives including electrical technology, reproduction technology, labor gender. While focused on contemporary performing arts, she is also interested in the relationship between the media environment and the body, especially attempts of non-Western dancers to rewrite dance history/narrative in various media.

• About Critics in Residence @KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024

Dates: Saturday, 5 October–Sunday, 27 October

Organizer: Delegation of the European Union to Japan

Supported by: KYOTO EXPERIMENT, The Saison Foundation

Operated by: Goethe-Institut Tokyo

For information here: https://kyoto-ex.jp/related/critics-in-residence/

• About the KYOTO EXPERIMENT

Kyoto Experiment is a performing arts festival held in Kyoto since 2010. Dedicated to producing and presenting experimental performing arts—both from Japan and overseas—the festival aims to explore and create new dialogues and values in society. Featuring experimental works that move freely between genres such as theater, dance, music and fine art, the festival hopes to open up new possibilities through the creations, experiences, and ideas that emerge from such a diverse combination.

• About The Saison Foundation

The Saison Foundation is a private grant-making foundation established by Seiji Tsutsumi (1927-2013). Since 1987, it has been providing grants for the promotion of contemporary Japanese theater and dance, and international exchange in these fields.

• About the Delegation of the European Union to Japan

A diplomatic institution established in 1974 to represent the EU in Japan (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary: Jean-Eric Paquet, Minato-ku, Tokyo). In collaboration with the 27 EU Member States, the Delegation seeks to introduce Europe's diverse history and culture to Japan, and plays a central role in promoting Japan-EU relations in fields such as diplomacy, trade and investment, climate and energy, digital technology, and research and innovation.

Media contact for this story

Kreab K.K. (PR agency), Akane Takahashi

[email protected]

Inquiries regarding Critics in Residence @ KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2024

Residence Coordinator, Haruna Hirano

[email protected]