chelfitsch Theater Company's Hot Pepper... to Play in Under The Radar 2012 Festival

As part of the Under The Radar Festival 2012, Japan Society proudly brings back the internationally acclaimed chelfitsch Theater Company to New York in the NY premiere of Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech.  Written and directed by Toshiki Okada, this production plays Thursday, January 5 – Saturday, January 14 at Japan Society (333 East 47^th Street).

Centered in an office break room and performed in three parts, Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech is a contemporary drama about young temporary office employees. In Hot Pepper, plans are underway for a farewell dinner for Erika, a temp worker dismissed as a result of the recession.  Air Conditioner enacts a conversation between two full-time workers, who free from worry about termination, instead fixate on the office thermostat.  Farewell Speech dramatizes Erika's last words spoken five minutes before the end of work on the very last day of her contract, as the staff gathers around to say good-bye.

This chelfitsch work, which premiered in 2009 in Berlin and toured Europe in 2010 and 2011, is performed in writer/director Toshiki Okada's signature style, with its surface narrative driven by an evocative gestural vocabulary and exaggerated fidgeting-turned-choreography.  Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech draws sharp and visually vibrant images from everyday interactions.  Here, Okada captures the empty, ungrounded nature of Japan's "Generation Y" through three humorously absurd workplace exchanges. 

Performed by Taichi Yamagata, Riki Takeda, Mari Ando, Saho Ito, Kei Namba, Fumie Yokoo. 

In Japanese with English subtitles.  Running time: 65 minutes.  Note: The Japan Society Gallery will be transformed for the first time to a black box studio for this performance.  General seating.

Japan Society Artistic Director Yoko Shioya shares, "It means a lot for us to be able to present both Toshiki Okada's chelfitsch Theater Company (Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech) and Hideki Noda's THE BEE  in our first time participating in the Under The Radar Festival.  These shows truly illustrate what's going on in Japanese experimental contemporary theater.  In some ways, these plays represent 'opposites' in style and what they communicate.  In Toshiki Okada's play, characters avoid intimate and meaningful exchanges.  The work portrays Japan's "Generation Y," a generation known for handling matters lightly, if not indifferently.  In counterpoint, Hideki Noda's plays always contain one or more eccentric characters full of enormous, almost overwhelming, emotions and energy.  Yet, there is a common theme that these artists and their plays illustrate: the deeply rooted tendencies surrounding communication in Japanese society.  While the exterior of Japan's communication is tremendously polite and kind, beneath the surface, in Okada's world – apathy is ingrained – while in Noda's world, any event may trigger an eruption of previously suppressed emotion." 

chelfitsch Theater Company was founded in 1997 by Toshiki Okada, who writes and directs all the company's productions.  The name "chelfitsch" comes from a baby's mispronunciation of the English word "selfish."  It first defined its radical aesthetic philosophy by using an extremely colloquial Japanese in Surprised by Their Hopes (March 2001).  With Apartment (2002) and Five Days in March (2004), which won the prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award for Best Script, chelfitsch began to refine its aesthetics by juxtaposing words with a peculiarly noisy choreography derived from everyday gestures.  The company's international debut was in 2007, when Five Days in March was invited to KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTS in Brussels.  chelfitsch works have been enthusiastically received at prominent international theater festivals including Festival d'Automne à Paris, Holland Festival in Amsterdam, Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, UOVO Festival in Milan, among others, and venues throughout the world, including Brussels, Paris, Cardiff, Salzburg, Berlin, Zürich, Melbourne, Seoul and Singapore.  

In September 2009, Japan Society presented the company's Five Days in March, the group's U.S. debut.  Surrounding that presentation, Japan Society produced a North American Tour with appearances including the PuSh Festival (Vancouver, BC), On the Boards (Seattle, WA), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH), University of Missouri, St. Louis (St. Louis, MO) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL). 

Since its earliest premiere in 2004, chelfitsch's Air Conditioner (the basis for the current triptych) has been performed in seven cities across the U.S. and during UOVO Festival in Milan in 2008.  In 2009, Air Conditioner was presented as part of the 2009 Contemporary Dance Showcase at Japan Society.  Later that year, Air Conditioner was expanded into the longer Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech, which premiered at Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin).  Most recently, the work played to strong notice in Radar L.A. (Summer 2011).

Toshiki Okada was born in Yokohama in 1973 and formed chelfitsch in 1997.  With the company, he practices a distinctive methodology for creating plays, known for his use of hyper-colloquial Japanese and dynamic choreography.  In 2005, his play Five Days in March won the prestigious 49th Kishida Kunio Drama Award and Air Conditioner was a finalist at the Toyota Choreography Awards.  In February 2007 his collection of novels The End of the Special Time We Were Allowed debuted and was awarded the Kenzaburo Oe Prize.  In recent years, he has earned attention not only in the worlds of theater and contemporary dance, but also in fine arts and literature.  He has been invited to numerous art centers, museums and festivals such as Nam June Paik Art Center (Seoul), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The National Museum of Art (Osaka), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo) and Yokohama Triennale.  In March 2008, he presented Freetime, co-produced by KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTS (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna) and Festival d'Automne à Paris.  His stories and plays continue to be published in Japan, and translated into many languages for publication abroad.  In March 2010, the English version of Okada's play Enjoy was produced by The Play Company, and was directed by co-artistic director of Philadelphia's award winning Pig Iron Theatre Company, Dan Rothenberg.  In May 2010, the New York-based company Witness Relocation, led by Dan Safer, presented the English version of Five Days in March at La Mama E.T.C. 

Photo Credit: Toru Yokota