The City as Stage, The Audience as Performer.

“Tour Performances” by the performance group Port B in Tokyo

Abstract

The Japanese performance group Port B, established in 2002 by director Akira Takayama, has often worked on forgotten or unknown aspects of the city of Tokyo without using professional actors, but ordinary people who are related to each theme of the performance. Its early works were performed in theatres or in other buildings, but since 2006, the group has been mainly conducting “tour performances” which do not keep the audiences in a conventional theatre but rather take them outside.
Although the history of modern theatre since the beginning of the 20th century includes many examples of performances which have been held outside conventional theatres, Port B's “tour performance” follows a unique approach. The audience, either in small groups or even individually, visits various locations, always following different sources of information. Therefore, it takes part in the same performance at a different time. Each member of the audience is guided to forgotten or unknown places within the city where s/he discovers something, e.g. a new fact, or someone related to the theme of each “tour performance.” Moreover, participants are required to talk with group members or those people related to the performance theme in certain places. Port B's works transcend the conventional dualistic theatrical constellation such as stage and audience or performer and audience. The “tour performance” turns the perspective of the audience completely around , while the audience eventually revises her or his own image of the city.
The effect of this revision has ever been increased since the project Compartment City Tokyo (2009), because contemporary phenomena of the city of Tokyo are made the subject rather than simply its history. Port B's audience individually watches interviews on DVDs that have been conducted with ordinary people - including children and non-Japanese residents - and is encouraged to talk to some of these people. As a result, s/he gains the impression that s/he is also an element of the city, not as a passive audience member, but as an active performer. Moreover, by using social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook, Port B's recent “tour performance” refer to today's urbanized living conditions in our era of media technology. In this context and in terms of the reversed relationship between performer and audience, Port B's “tour performance” can be called a Brechtian Lehrstück for the 21st century. This treatment of the audience is very original and this is what distinguishes Port B from most current Japanese theatre groups, which make neither its audiences aware of current social and political issues nor encourage them to be proactive as a performer themselves.