What’s On
Mayunkiki+
- Performing Arts
- Aichi Arts Center
- Seto City
Performances
World Premiere, New CommissionPerformanceMusickuste
- © Namine Doi
- © Hirose Modoro
A Story woven through words, songs, sounds, light and shadow. Bridging across what often feels unbridgeable and irreversible:before and after, upstream and downstream, and ancestors and descendants.
This work involved a great deal of research in the Tenryu River basin in the Okumikawa region of Aichi Prefecture and the Ishikari River basin in Hokkaido Prefecture together with members Mayunkiki has performed and collaborated with in the past. The title kuste is a transitive verb in the Ainu language meaning “to make (something) pass through (a place).” The work was created while researching the career of Kaneto Kawamura, the grandfather of performers Mayunkiki and Rekpo who was a surveyor and leader of the Ainu people in Asahikawa whose efforts and achievements resulted in the opening of the Sanshin Railway in the Okumikawa region of Aichi Prefecture, a feat that is said to have been one of the most challenging projects undertaken during the time railways were being laid in Japan.
Date/Venue
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- Relaxed Performance
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- Relaxed Performance
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- MEET THE ARTIST
- Relaxed Performance
Setogura Tsubaki Hall
(1-1 Kurasho-machi, Seto)
Date/Venue
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- Childcare Services
- Childcare Services
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- Childcare Services
- Childcare Services
Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, Large Rehearsal Room (B2F)
(1-13-2 Higashisakura, Higashi-ku, Nagoya)
Performance time
80 min.
Language
Ainu language, Japanese
Tickets
- Adult
- ¥3,500
- U25
- ¥2,000
* Same-day tickets (General and U25) are ¥500 more than the advance price.
* Pair tickets (6,500 Yen) are sold only in advance.
Seating
Unreserved
Staff
apetunpe (Rekpo, Mayunkiki)
SUIKA KEIMAI (Hirose Tact, Mayunkiki)
hoshifune (Koyano Tetsuro, Watanabe Naoka)
Matchume Zango
Sato Naoko
WHITELIGHT
Yamada Hiroki (ayamelab)
Performance flyer
It will be released at a later date.
Assistance for viewing
- [Before you attend]
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- This work is performed in Ainu and Japanese.
- Preschool-aged children are welcome to attend Relaxed Performances at Setogura Tsubaki Hall. Children of preschool age may attend for free if they sit on an accompanying adult’s lap. A ticket is required for children who need a separate seat (U25 tickets are available).
- Visitors using wheelchairs are asked to contact i-Ticket at 0570-00-5310.
- [Childcare Services]
- Childcare services are available. Advance reservation is required. Further details will be announced on the official website at a later date.
- [MEET THE ARTIST ()]
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A talk with the cast and director(s) will follow the performance. Audience members are welcome to attend without a reservation.
- Live text support via UD Talk.
- [Relaxed Performance ( - )]
- Relaxed performances offer a more flexible setting and looser audience etiquette. Attendees are welcome to make noise, come and go as they please, and enjoy the show at their own pace. These performances offer a welcoming space for parents with young children, visitors with disabilities, and anyone who finds traditional theater environments challenging.
Profile
- Formed 2025 in Japan. Works nomadically.
Mayunkiki, a musician and contemporary artist from Hokkaido, grounds her creative practice in a deep, introspective engagement with her identity as an Ainu, an Indigenous ethnic minority in Japan. Taking as her point of departure the “experiences that arise from being Ainu,” she insists on an artistic perspective rooted in personal subjectivity as she probes the complexities of what it means to be Ainu in the present moment.
Mayunkiki+ is a special ensemble created exclusively for this performance at Aichi Triennale 2025. The group brings together: apetumpe, featuring Mayunkiki’s older sister Rekpo, a singer active mainly in traditional Ainu music; SUIKA KEIMAI, an experimental sonic unit featuring Mayunkiki and Hirose Tact; Koyano Tetsuro and Watanabe Naoka of hoshifune, collaborating with Ainu shadow pictures; and WHITELIGHT, who will handle audio design.
This ensemble has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Tenryu River basin in the Oku-Mikawa district in Aichi Prefecture and the upstream areas of Ishikari River in Hokkaido. Drawing on the findings of this fieldwork, kuste will retrace the footsteps of Kawamura Kaneto: Mayunkiki and Repko’s grandfather, who was a legendary surveyor and prominent Ainu leader in the city of Asahikawa, Hokkaido, during the early part of the Shōwa era (1926 -1989). Kawamura left a remarkable legacy through his work constructing some of Japan’s most challenging railway sections, including Oku-Mikawa and the old Sanshin Line (the current JR Iida Line), between the Tenryukyo (Tenryu Gorge) Station and Mikawa Kawai Station in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture.
The title kuste comes from a transitive verb in the Ainu language meaning “to let something pass through a place.” Following Kawamura’s path, this performance seeks to build bridges across what often feels unbridgeable and irreversible: before and after, upstream and downstream, and ancestors and descendants.
- Selected performances
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- 2024
- SUKIYAKI MEETS THE WORLD (Toyama, Japan)/SUKIYAKI TOKYO (Japan) Mayunkiki & Surge (*1)
- 2024
- “ukouk”, Sapporo International Art Festival 2024, MAREWREW × KOMAKUS (*2) (Hokkaido, Japan)
- 2023/2024
- “nociw kotan”, Upopoy, hoshifune × apetunpe (Hokkaido, Japan)
- 2023
- Shanku Musical Festival 2023, SUIKA KEIMAI (Hualien, Taiwan)
- 2022
- Mayunkiki solo exhibition, SIKNURE – Let me live Opening performance, Mayunkiki & Surge (Birmingham, UK)
- 2022
- Picnic at Music Hall, hoshifune × Apetunpe (Kanagawa, Japan)
*1 A band SUIKA KEIMAI organized in the United Kingdom.
*2 An artistic group whose members were originally with WHITELIGHT.
