DATE: Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 8 pm.

LOCATION: CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)
123 4th Ave, 2nd FL, New York, NY 10003

In observance of the one-year anniversary of the Tohoku, Japan earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster, CRS welcomes back Big Apple Playback Theatre for a bilingual event to remember, share and act out stories from the survivors, family members and friends of those living in the disaster area.

Drama Therapist Big Apple Playback member Mizuho Kanazawa and Plabyack Theatre Japan founder Kayo Munakata will work with Big Apple Playback to ensure that non English-speaking Japanese will be able to fully express themselves and understand what’s being shared by English speakers.

Japanese people living here at the time were initially unable to reach their families in the disaster zone or even to find out if they were still alive or if their homes were still standing. Those who were abroad had to fight feelings of helplessness and panic, even as their friends and family in Japan were too busy dealing with everything to be paralyzed by fear. Aftershocks and news reports, relocating and shopping for basic supplies, finding family members, etc. forced them to focus on the present. Here, little by little, we tried to focus our own minds on recovery, on grounding ourselves and providing peaceful, loving long-distance support to those in Japan to boost their spirits and get them through the long days.

A year after the catastrophe, many thousands of people are still missing, tens of thousands are still displaced, and the extent of the radioactive contamination is still very uncertain and the danger ongoing. By sharing these experiences, we can remind ourselves that we are all going through the seem things and facing the same challenges. The next time there is a crisis, we can help one another to act with love rather than to react with fear. When we give in to fear, we are cut off from our source and feel small, powerless, unwilling to try. But when we remember that our true nature is infinite, unharmable loving spirt, then we can think and act without hesitation to help our brothers and sisters, and work miracles together.

One third of the proceeds from full-price ticket sales will go to the Japan Playwrights Association, to support Tohoku theatre companies affected by the disaster.

PLAYBACK THEATRE is spontaneous theatre based on stories told by audience members. Life stories are shared, cast, and then enacted on the spot by a team of actors/dancers and a musician. Be they comic or tragic, our life stories are full of important moments worth sharing and remembering. Telling our stories to each other in a theatrical context is both redemptive and invigorating. Listening to the stories of our community is crucial as we strive towards a world without hate and violence. The objective of Big Apple Playback Theatre is three-fold: to invite dialogue, build community, and to create compelling theatre. It therefore lives on the cusp between art and social change and provides opportunity for laughter, reflection, and connection.

http://bigappleplayback.com

Inspired by the experimental theatre movement, psychodrama, and oral tradition of indigenous cultures, Playback Theatre was created in upstate New York in the 1970s by Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas, and the original PT Company. The method is now practiced across the world in sixty countries, and is used in a variety of settings including conferences, schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals, service agencies, and public theatres.

To connect to Playback Theatre around the world, go to www.playbacknet.org

Last spring, shortly after the devastating earthquake in Japan, actor James Yaegashi, whose family is from a nearby area, called friends in the New York theatre to say, “We as a theatre community have to do something to help our fellow artists on the other side of the world.”

Six months later, a friendly consortium of over a dozen organizations came together to prepare a remarkable nation-wide event.

Now, on the first anniversary of the earthquake, theatres everywhere are joning SHINSAI: THEATERS FOR JAPAN. Shinsai [SHEEN-sigh] means great quake in Japanese.

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Big Apple Playback Theatre
Big Apple Playback Theatre is a professional physical theatre company that brings true stories told by the audience to life on the spot using movement, music, metaphor, text, and poetry. Playback Theatre is an expression of art and a vehicle for change providing ample opportunity for laughter, reflection, connection, empathy and dialogue.

http://bigappleplayback.com/
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About CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is a community center opened in 2004 by writer/lecturer/healer Yasuko Kasaki, her students, and artist/producer Christopher Pelham in order to provide artists and individuals from all walks of life with opportunities to remember and share their limitless creative energies. Through our programs in the healing and creative arts, including meditation and A Course in Miracles, you can train your mind to act in accordance with your true self with consistency and to take active steps to follow your internal creative direction.

CRS is located at 123 Fourth Ave on the second floor, just south of Manhattan’s Union Square, between 12th & 13th streets, one block east of Broadway, and just above Think Coffee. There is metered curb-side parking out front and an hourly lot at 12th St and Third Ave. To visit by public transportation, take the 4/5/6, N/R/Q or L train or M14 bus to Union Square and walk south on Fourth Ave from the southeast corner of the square.

The Center is a member of the Asian American Arts Alliance, A.R.T./New York, and The Field, and has received support from CRS, The Ella Lyman Cabot Trust, the Jim Henson Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, Materials for the Arts, the J P Morgan Chase SOAR Program of the Asian American Arts Alliance, the Queens Council on the Arts, and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs and administered by the LMCC. The Center is also sponsored by the vintage clothing boutique Doggy’s World, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. For more: http://www.crsny.org