Theatre workshop held by Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, Japan

On the afternoon of October 22nd, 2017, a theatre workshop was held by Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, Japan at the Thrust Stage Theatre in Changping Campus of the Central Academy of Drama, China by Terufumi Koshimitsu, president of Toho Gakuen College. Students took actively part in the workshop.

At first, Prof. Terufumi Koshimitsu required students to participate in a warm-up game of skipping rope. He stressed that students needed to feel the change of the rope and adapt to it in the course of rope skipping. Then he asked the students to carry out this training without ropes. The training purpose was not to improve performers’ coordination of their bodies, but to cultivate their imagination. President Terufumi Koshimitsu thinks that performance was a kind of imagination. If one person didn’t believe the existence of the rope during the process of virtual rope skipping, it would make the entire performance flawed and deficient. Therefore, it is necessary to find a breakthrough point in the performance. Sometimes, the imagination is even more important than reality.

The second part was the training of lines. Four students stood in a row facing the wall. Another student stood behind them and started to call one designated person from different distances. If one of the four students thought he/she was called, he/she could promptly turn back. This training focused on the concentration of the actors' lines with an aim to establish a platform for interpersonal communication. In this training process, real psychological reaction is much more important than the amplitude of voice. President Terufumi Koshimitsu, who is over sixty, was praised and respected by the audience because of his in-person demonstrating teaching.

The last part was an interactive experience activity. The Japanese actors led the audience to experience the wearing way of Japanese kimono. Later, they demonstrated some essential movements of kabuki as well as swordsmanship and its positioning method of “Tate”. The participants were very excited and showed great interest in kabuki.The workshop team prepared a lot of costumes for the audience to experience, which showed their sincerity.

At such warm atmosphere, students paid much attention to President Terufumi Koshimitsu’s body language and understood the training essentials. Such workshop training gives a good proof that theatre is without borders.