Takeshi Kawamura

Quick Facts

Full Name	Takeshi Kawamura
Date Of Birth	Dec 22, 1959(1959-12-22)
Age	65
Birthplace	Tokyo
Country	Japan
Horoscope	Sagittarius

Takeshi Kawamura Biography

Takeshi Kawamura is one of the most popular and richest Theatre Director who was born on December 22, 1959 in Tokyo, Japan. Born in Tokyo in 1959, Kawamura established his first company, Daisan Erotica, in 1980, while studying at Meiji University. Kawamura was a writer, director and sometimes performed in the company’s shows that drew inspiration from his experiences in the Japanese Angura (underground) theatre in the 1970s, 1960s, as well as in the 1970s and 1960s from Western as well as Japanese pop culture. Drawing upon and reacting to the work of such angura playwright/director/actors as Terayama Shuji, Suzuki Tadashi, and Kara Juro, Kawamura embraced their experimental focus and avant-garde physicality while rejecting their desire to reconcile the present with the past and their faith in social activism. Drawing from angura, Kawamura also was influenced by secondhand the thoughts of Western theater artists, including Antonin Artaud’s brutal, absurdist Theatre of Cruelty; Samuel Beckett’s dreamy absurdism and Bertolt’s wish to keep his audience engaged and critical of theatre or social artifice. Other direct Western influences include movies by directors such as Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) and Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs).

The decade 2000 has seen another shift in the work of Kawamura however his interest in social issues, violence that is socially programmed as well as the mismatch between reality and fiction remain the same. Returning to his deconstruction of old works he first examined through Eight Dogs of Shinjuku and A Man Called Macbeth, Kawamura presented Hamletclone in the year 2000. The work examined Japanese current events as well as social conflicts using live actors, projections of images and video footage, contemporary dance and an extensive sound design, as well as paying homage to German postmodern playwright Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine which is a pastiche and dissection of Shakespeare as well as other works. Kawamura’s fascination with the dissection and reconstitution of texts went another step forward in 2001 when he re-read his 80s “classic,” Japan Wars. The revised version, Japan Wars (2), revived the original work by using the same framing method that Kawamura has altered Shakespeare to create A Man Called Macbeth: An interrogator requests one character who is here among the androids to recall the scene from Shakespeare’s original work. By incorporating images from attacks on the World Trade Center attacks and concluding the play with the line “The film is finished,” the production re-examined the boundaries between real in the real world and the constructed.

Combining all of these influences, Kawamura’s early plays, created with Daisan Erotica, included Radical Party (1983), about a group of young, nihilistic male prostitutes, rebelling “in opposition to nothing whatsoever”; Genocide (1984), in which a young man steps into and becomes trapped in “the film he wishes he could see”; and Eight Dogs of Shinjuku: Volume 1, Birth of Dogs (1985), a deconstruction of a classic Japanese novel series, re-set in Shinjuku’s underground gay culture. Eight Dogs of Shinjuku won Japan’s premiere award for new plays, the Kishida Kunio Drama Award.; but an earlier play, Japan Wars, remains Kawamura’s most-referenced work in the Western world.

In the late 1990s Kawamura’s work began become more well-known internationally. His production in 1990 A Man Called Macbeth toured North America in 1992, performing in the International Theatre Festival of Chicago Set within The Japanese underground criminal gang, the production of Macbeth included framing scenes in which Macbeth was a young Macbeth expressed his opinion on the scene to an interrogator from the police. Kawamura came back to his home in the U.S. in 1997, after being awarded an award to learn about New York City theatre, and then in 1998 to stage two shows with the distinction of guest director at the New York University’s Department of Drama, Tisch School of the Arts. The same decade saw Kawamura’s work with Daisan Erotica moved away from direct social critique, which was encased by science fiction and moved towards explicit, sharp commentary on Japanese contemporary developments and social issues. Tokyo Trauma (1995) was born from the need to discuss the twin disasters that occurred in 1995, the Kobe earthquake as well as the sarin gassing that took place on Tokyo metro trains in the hands of Aum cultists. Obsession Site (1996) focused on Japan’s colonial invasions into Korea and China and also dealt with problems like the issue of homelessness, racism street violence, social discontent. Kawamura also began using the use of video projections within his works along with contemporary dancers and dance techniques.

Takeshi Kawamura Net Worth

Takeshi Kawamura is one of the richest Theatre Director from Japan. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Takeshi Kawamura 's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: December 11, 2023)

He gained recognition in the 1980s for his popular-culture-influenced, violent, highly physical plays. In the wake of this work, and combining it and later works of social critique and postmodern experimental theatre, Kawamura secured his position as a well-known international actor. As the artistic director of theatre businesses Daisan Erotica and T Factory, Kawamura uses his plays to express his opinion both directly and indirectly on Japanese society and contemporary events, while also prompting the audience to look at questions like the influence of media on the way we live as well as the mismatch between reality with fantasies, and the human nature of individuality.

The novel was written in 1984. Japan Wars follows a group of teens who find themselves trapped on an underwater vessel, and remember only that they once were “radical activists.” They eventually realize that they are in fact androids who are programmed to serve as soldiers. All of the “human” memories are false selected and implanted to influence their actions and thoughts in the fight against the mutant cows that have taken over the earth. In the final scene, the androids revolt and discover that their desire to “revolution” also comes from programs implanted by cows to prevent the cows from milking them and their dark creators have designed their refusal to obey, to make them ready to fight. Many critics see the play as an “superlative” example of Japanese theatre from the 1980s – theater written by young actors who were disillusioned by the blatant marketing in the Japanese “bubble economy,” skeptical of all motives or desires in imagining a future that is dull, meaningless and inexplicably impossible. The myth of personal identity, the interplay with reality “created” reality (fiction perceived as real) violence as a response “programmed” by a subtle power structure in addition to youth becoming the target of corrupting forces are all themes that appear frequently in Kawamura’s later works.

Kawamura reconstructed his company itself the following year, renaming it T Factory; Daisan Erotica became the name of an affiliated venue for actor training and play development. T Factory staged a revival of Hamletclone, similar to that of Japan Wars, in 2003. Kawamura’s most recent piece to tour North America (in 2007 and continuing into 2008), AOI/KOMACHI, adapts much older source material. The production places two 15th-century traditional Japanese noh plays in modern settings, drawing on horror film influences and critiquing the cult of celebrity.

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

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Who is Takeshi Kawamura Dating?

According to our records, Takeshi Kawamura is possibily single & has not been previously engaged. As of December 1, 2023, Takeshi Kawamura’s is not dating anyone.

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Facts & Trivia

Takeshi Ranked on the list of most popular Theatre Director. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in Japan. Takeshi Kawamura celebrates birthday on December 22 of every year.

Top Facts about Takeshi Kawamura

1. Takeshi Kawamura is a Japanese playwright and director.
2. He was born in 1959.
3. His plays often explore social issues and human relationships.
4. Kawamura has won numerous awards for his work.
5. He founded the theater company “Kaimaku Pennant Race” in 1986.
6. Some of his notable works include “The Blue Bird” and “The Great Pretender.”
7. Kawamura has also directed productions of classic plays like “Hamlet.”
8. He is known for incorporating multimedia elements into his productions.
9. Kawamura’s work has been performed both nationally and internationally.
10. He continues to be an influential figure in Japanese theater today.