Welcome
to tonight's performance of Rey Camoy at St Maur!
We are beyond delighted to be here, having travelled all the way from Osaka to share with you our latest production.
Our show is inspired by a 20th century Japanese painter called Rey Camoy. Camoy was fascinated by the dark side of humanity. By all accounts a warm and loving person, in his paintings you sense a lot of suffering. He attempted suicide on several occasions and finally took his life at the age of 57.
Our show is not a biography. Don't expect a story. Imagine that you have wandered into an exhibition of Camoy’s paintings and the characters on his canvases have come to life. A drunk, a clown, an old crone, a disabled soldier. And a mysterious figure that could be a lover or a muse. Camoy is there too. They hound him and beguile him and draw out his passion and his anguish one by one.
So there isn’t a story. There isn’t even any dialogue. What is there?
Just six actors acting out their longings, in a way that is larger than life. It’s like three-dimensional music. Or what poetry might look like if made up of actions rather than words. And like music or poetry, there's no one way to see the show. It's up to you and your imagination to make sense of it.
If you're intrigued by what we do, why not try it out for yourself? In our studio in Osaka we run a school offering full time professional training in Corporeal Mime as well as ad hoc classes and workshops. If you’re in the area you can come for a free trial class any morning during term time. We also run regular online classes. The next course starts on 29th November. You'll find more information about the school on our website here and in our school flyer (Japanese only) which you’ll find at the box office.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Kentaro, Tania, Ryuta, Yukko, Teruyan and Tsuttan
25 November 2023
ps There is very little written about Camoy in English but if you want to find out more you can read this excellent article in Tokyo Art Beat.
CREDITS
REY CAMOY
by tarinainanika theatre company
Directed by Kentaro Suyama and Tania Coke
Performed by Kentaro Suyama, Tania Coke,
Ryuta Kawai, Yukiko Masui, Teruya Sugimoto, Masaya Tsujimoto
Music by Tania Coke
Video by Kentaro Suyama
Lights by Andrew Woolner
Sound and video operation by Tomoki Nonaka
Produced by tarinainanika in collaboration with St Maur International School
Special thanks to Madoka Yamashita, Yuuya Ishizone, Wakabacho Wharf