New Earth Theatre announces Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition and Tsunagu/Connect Live, created by Kumiko Mendl and Kazuko Hohki.
This exhibition and theatre production were developed in response to an oral history project launched in 2020, that conducted over 30 interviews with Japanese women living in the UK.
Tsunagu/Connect: The Exhibition, offers an intimate glimpse into the worlds of these women through photos, objects and audio, running at artsdepot, 13 – 19 February 2022 and London Metropolitan Archives, 28 February – 24 March 2022.
Tsunagu/Connect Live is an immersive, promenade performance using the exhibition as a set for a kaleidoscopic journey across continents and decades, inspired by the interviews running at Shoreditch Town Hall, 23 – 30 April.
Kumiko Mendl, Artistic Director of New Earth Theatre, said today, “Tsunagu/Connect has always been a passion project for me. Following the launch of the project back in 2020 and a whole pandemic later we are finally at the point we can share our discoveries. It has been an immense privilege and honour to hear the stories of our interviewees; of their hopes, ambitions, struggles and dreams and I am forever grateful for everyone’s generosity and time. I hope that by presenting a performance together with an exhibition, Tsunagu/Connect Live can literally pull the stories off the wall and make these hitherto undocumented stories from the past live today and for the future.”i
