Please see at: https://youtu.be/0HXy-b7ij7E
Bunkamura Challenge online-program
“Fate” by the K-ballet Company
With its four theatres all currently closed due to Covid-19, the Shibuya, Tokyo-based Bunkamura group is instead focusing on the development and delivery of online programs in what it calls its Bunkamura Challenge.
To begin with, the major cultural conglomerate produced “Playtime,” a new reading performance by the renowned actors Mirai Moriyama and Haru Kurokia that was recorded at its Theatre Cocoon, as well as “#OrbTALK,” a series of original video interviews with top musical actors and creators from Broadway and the West End.
Now, the artistic director of Bunkamura’s flagship, 2,150-seat Orchard Hall, Tetsuya Kumakawa, has overseen “Unmei” (“Fate”), a new piece created by his K-ballet Company’s five main dancers — Shuntaro Miyao (who also did the choreography), Mina Kobayashi, Saya Narita, Kei Sugino and Kaito Sekino — based on the music of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5, which is known as the Fate Symphony.
In fact the first half of “Fate” comprises separate interviews with the dancers about how they have been spending their time in the last few months, what they think about the current situation — and how they feel about presenting their work online.
Then in the second half they dance Miyao’s “Fate,” performing not only on the Orchard Hall stage, but in its auditorium and a rehearsal room as well as on the roof and in a delivery entrance. Also making imaginative use of a variety of artistic filming techniques, the work brilliantly displays the dancers’ strength and the beauty of their bodies and movements.
Then at the end, the Japanese ballet legend that is “Teddy” Kumakawa takes the stage to viewers all over the world that, as good as this online piece may be, when live ballet returns it will be with even more power and purpose than ever.
