ima theater

Performance project consisting of four members – Saori Azuma, Miho Inatsugu, Aki Miyatake and Tomo Yamazaki. In 2013, the company started its activities based at HAGISO, a smallest cultural complex in Yanaka, Tokyo. In addition to collaborating with musicians, artists, architects, imaginary cartographers, researchers and other specialists in different fields, they create works based on existing ‘places’ and their ‘behaviour’, such as cafés, hotels, ward offices and waiting rooms. By crossing real-life situations with performance and fiction, they create unique experiential works that dissimulate reality.

These have included the Performance Café, HAGISO, etc. (2013-) where you can order a performance just like coffee at a regular café, the Performance Desk, Toshima Art Station Koso,  Toshima City (2015, 2016) where an imaginary desk to promote art was opened in a corner of the ward office, Imaginary Art Festival Fiction, Sumida River Sumi-yume Art Project, Sumida Ward, Taito Ward (2017- ), Dareka no Ima/ Shiata- (Someone Now/Theatre), Sumida Mukojima EXPO 2020, Sumida Ward (2020), a theatre that can be experienced by just one person, Nichijo no Hitokoma wo Dogu ni Shiyo Wa-kushoppu (Let’s make a clay figurine out of a piece of everyday life), in collaboration with the Social Science of Crisis Thinking, Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo, Kamaishi City (2020), a workshop on people’s memories of Kamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture, Hito to Sake no Kakawari Kan (The Museum of Human and Sake Relations), Sumida Mukojima EXPO 2021, Sumida Ward (2021), a museum in an imaginary world where alcohol has been lost, and Giant Diner, Hachinohe Art Museum (2022), which turns an art museum into a cafeteria. 

In addition to creating artworks, they also plan and organise events and, in recent years, have been navigating courses in the field of art. They have been a navigator for the Arts Council Tokyo’s Tokyo Art Research Lab ‘Tokyo Project Study’ (2018-2020), a guest lecturer for the Tokyo University of the Arts and Toho Gakuen School of Music joint project ‘Music Bridge “Un-Leaning Study Group”‘ (2021), and other activities.

imatheater.com

Giant Diner（2022）photo by Hajime Kato

Hito to Sake no Kakawari Kan (The Museum of Human and Sake Relations)（2021）photo by Rhohei Tomita

Dareka no Ima/ Shiata- (Someone Now/Theatre)（2020）