In summer 2012 Saratov Academic Kiselev Youth Theater goes on tour to Japan. From 19th of July to 9th of August in the frames of Kijimuna Festa 2012 / ASSITEJ International Meeting our theater will present «A Sprout» performance in four cities of Japan.

In summer 2012 Saratov Academic Kiselev Youth Theater will participate in a major theater for children and youth event in Japan – The International Theater Festival OKINAWA for young audience Kijimuna Festa 2012 that will host this year the First ASSITEJ International Meeting. From the 19th July to 9th of August Saratov Kiselev Youth Theater will be part of the global cultural event that will gather in Japan the most interesting and well-know theater companies all over the world.
In the frames of Kijimuna Festa 2012 / ASSITEJ International Meeting Kiselev Youth Theater performance «A Sprout» will be presented in four cities of Japan: Kitakyusyu, Okinawa, Iida and Osaka. Japanese spectators will be able to watch 9 presentations of Saratov theater performance.

Kijimuna Festa (International Theater Festival OKINAWA for Young Audience) is an annual international performing arts festival for children and young people, which takes place in Okinawa City, Japan. In 2012 in the festival’s program there are 56 productions, 7 symposiums, 5 seminars, 13 workshops and 30 fringe productions. On Okinawa island theater companies from all over the world will gather – from Japan, Europe, India, Iran, Israel, Korea, South Africa, Vietnam and other countries. Theme of Kijimuna Festa 2012 is “Theater is Nuchigusui”. It means “medicine for life” or “medicine for long life” in Okinawan language. “Nuchigusui” is what supports “Nuchi du Takara”, the spirit of Okinawa.

The Kijimuna Festival strives to give an opportunity to children by watching the best selection productions from all over the world to fell that mutual respect and understanding means, to immerse in the aura of tenderness and creativity. The goals of the Kijimuna Festival are young audience education and making contribution into World Peace. Festival’s producer Hisashi Shimoyama visited Saratov Youth Theater from 28th to 31st of January 2011, he took a great interest in theater’s performances that resulted in the invitation to participate in Kijimuna Festa 2012.

ASSITEJ International Meeting is a new gathering opportunity for artists, practitioners and producers in theatre for children and young people commissioned by ASSITEJ.  It is a fantastic opportunity to establish and develop the creative relationship across borders. In May 2011, at the ASSITEJ World Congress in Copenhagen and Malmoe Kijimuna Festa 2012 was selected to host the ASSITEJ International Meeting. Numbers of seminars and symposiums will be organized by practitioners from all over the world to look at various issues such as the role of theatre for young people for peace-building, next generation, baby drama, disability and the arts, crisis and the arts, tradition and present day, and international collaboration. There also will be workshops of Asian traditional performing arts.

In Iida city (Nagano Prefecture) Saratov performance will be presented in the program of Iida Puppet Festa that was born from the Puppetry Carnival Iida started in the International Year of the Child (1979). The Festival’s motto is “Everyone Can Take Part – by Seeing, Playing or Supporting”, its goals are the progress and development of puppet shows and youth theater, support of the young artists, communication with the audience and cherish encounters, personal contact, and mutual learning, and nurturing people with generous minds. In Kitakyusyu “A Sprout” will be presented in Performing Arts Center, in Osaka – “Art Space” centre where from the 7th to 8th of August a mini-festival of theater for children will be held that will present to the young spectators the theater companies from the other countries. Besides Saratov Youth Theater companies from Spain and Taiwan are participating in the Osaka mini-festival.

“A Sprout” performance is designed for children from 1 year and for their parents by young theater director from St.Petersburg Ekaterina. Production-designer – Olga Kolesnikova, composer – Mikhail Kheifetz, lighting designer – Victor Storozhenko. The performance is dedicated to the first-begotten elements: water, fire, earth and air. There are no words in the show for it uses only music, motion and visual representation, so that children freely perceive the beauty and wholeness of the world, mutual connection of the essential elements and the beginning of life through their senses and fantasy.

Visit in Japan will be the third tour for “A Sprout” performance.  Saratov Kiselev Youth theatre presented “A Sprout” on the 6th International Fairytale Theatre Festival “I’m small – hello!” (literally: “Yamall – privet!”; Yamall is the name of a semi island) of a Syberian city New Urengoy that took place from 18 till 23 of March 2009. The Children’s Jury of the Festival awarded our theater with a Diploma in the “Magical rainbow” nomination for the most colorful and bright show. From the 4th to 9th of November 2010 in the frames of the three-year collaboration project with tjg.Theater Junge Generation (Dresden, Germany) Saratov Academic Kiselev Youth Theater was on tour to Dresden and Chemnitz with the performance "A Sprout". The international «premiere» of the performance went profoundly well proving that theater is a unique language of communication that everyone in the world can understand.

“A Sprout” participation in Kijimuna Festa 2012 was supported by Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

Additional information:

“A Sprout”  page on the Kitakyusyu Performing Arts Center website:
http://www.kitakyushu-performingartscenter.or.jp/event/2012/0721sprout.html
“A Sprout”  page on the Kijimuna Festa 2012 website:
http://www.2012productions.kijimuna-festa.org/a-sprout.php
“A Sprout”  in the Iida Puppet Festa program:
http://www.iida-puppet.com/thisyear/charge/index.html
“A Sprout”  page on the  Osaka “Art Space” centre website:
http://www.artcomplex.net/art-space/sche/index.php?itemid=8454