Future Ideations Camp Vol.7 Super Sober Shamanism：Exploring Synchronization, Co-presence, and Mimesis through Theatre and Technology

About

Civic Creative Base Tokyo’s Future Ideations Camp is a series of intensive workshops bringing different kinds of people together to work collaboratively and creatively with art and digital technologies. Around twenty selected participants take part in several days of lectures to acquire new ways of thinking, workshops for building skill sets, and collaborative group activities. During the camps, the general public are also able to attend talks and presentations of the results.

The seventh camp explores theater and technology, and is held in partnership with the Performing Arts Festival: Autumn Meteorite Tokyo, which takes place in October. Overseen by three directors active in both technology and theater, this iteration of the camp aims to provide opportunities to learn about using technology in theater as well as offer the chance to explore the medium of theater in specialist ways, and propose a new model of theater for the future.

Directors’ Statement

Cooking a meal while listening to the radiko app. Drinking a beer while waiting for a live stream to begin. Checking the predicted location of rain clouds thirty minutes from now on the forecast map. Our everyday landscape today emerges from such multiplex layers of time, space, and physicality.

We, the directors of this program, have developed a concept of what constitutes technology and theatre as the superimposing of many phenomena: different entities superimposing their own temporalities and spatialities while retaining their respective differences of rhythm and desire (that is, a state of synchronization and co-presence); and superimposing onto a body or personality another (or many other) bodies and personalities through the act of mimesis. By further superimposing the effects of superimposition that forms the basis of technology and theatre, how can we redefine, expand, or multiply the two?

In order to explore technology and theatre, it is vital first to try moving your hands and body. This camp will feature various intuitive tools, such as a peeler for cooking, a blacklight for detecting Anisakis parasites, and a smart and versatile built-in stove called Pipitto Konro. The participants will learn how to use them with instructors well versed in various technologies related to performance, including forms of digital embodiment like AI and extended reality, sound design, and text manipulation. They will then divide into teams and develop a performance and exhibit over the creative phase of the camp.

The somehow spellbinding aura that surrounds new technology re-summons the ritualistic character of theatre and the shamanistic nature of acting—though it will be a super sober shamanism that coolly and calmly circumvents ecstatic frenzy.

Eguchi Masato, God Scorpion, Shinoda Chiharu

Exhibition

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Performing Arts Festival: Autumn Meteorite Tokyo 2025

Performing Arts Festival: Autumn Meteorite Tokyo 2025, an international performing arts festival held primarily at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro, Toshima City, from October 1 to November 3, 2025. The Artistic Director is Toshiki Okada, who is active both in Japan and overseas as a playwright, director, novelist, and leader of the theater company chelfitsch. Under his direction, the festival aims to become a truly international performing arts festival that is inclusive and open to all. Autumn Meteorite seeks to create opportunities for audiences to become aware of different forms of reality and to reframe the world through new perspectives. The festival hopes that performing arts expressions from Japan and around the world, taking place here and now, will feel more personal, relatable, and resonant. The 2025 edition will consist of three main components: the Performance Program, featuring 14 productions from Japan and abroad; the Non-Performance Program, offering lectures, workshops, and other activities; and Hello and Welcome, an attendee support initiative that ensures accessibility and an inviting environment for all visitors.

Organizer: Tokyo Festival Executive Committee [Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)]
Support: Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan Japan Arts Council
Sponsor: Asahi Group Japan, Ltd.
Media Partner: Tokyo Art Beat
In cooperation with: Toshima city, SEIBU RAILWAY Co.,Ltd, TOBU RAILWAY CO., Ltd