TOGA ARTS PARK_Toga, Japan

Toga Art Park, Japan.

Situated in the south-eastern tip of prefecture, Toga Village (Toyama), with its population of only one thousand, is loved by performing arts professionals and fans from all over the world.  As of November 1, 2004 eight towns and villages, (Johana, Taira, Kamitaira, Toga, Inami, Inokuchi, Fukuno, and Fukumitsu) merged into a new city called Nanto City.

The Toga Arts Park contains a mixture of theatre spaces, including a noh-like farmhouse theatre and a spectacular outdoor amphi-theatre overlooking a lake. Crucially, it has provided a ‘home’ for SCOT. The site has grown into a complex of lodgings, rehearsal rooms, and assorted performing spaces, including a studio theatre, a second gassho-zukuri theatre, a black box theatre and an outdoor “rock” theatre.

Toga Art Park was established to encourage the theatre arts, drama, music and dance cultivated through the holding of the internationally-acclaimed Toga Spring Arts Festival and Toga Summer Arts Programme. The park incorporates two outdoor theatres and various indoor rehearsal and performances facilities, including the Shin-Toga Mountain Studio, designed by world-famous architect Arata Isozaki. Through its hosting of international events, Toga Art Park is known throughout Japan and around the world as a centre of dramatic arts activities.

The construction of the park in Toga was an on-going long-term and organic process spanning three decades. Buildings arose according to the influx of new funds and new demands, be they from SCOT, the villagers or an American university. Although each space serves its own specific function, they are all unified in their design by Isozaki and their location within the landscape.

SCOT + Festivals
In 1976, Tadashi Suzuki relocated his theatre troupe, the Waseda Shogekijo—which for the previous ten years had spearheaded the new theatre movement in Japan—from its home in central Tokyo to Toga, a remote village in the mountains of western Japan and when they renamed themselves the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT).

Following Suzuki’s notions of the universality of theatre, this special location played host for many years (1982-1999) to the Toga International Arts Festival, which offered concentrated workshops in the Suzuki Method of Actor Training created by Suzuki being learnt by performing artists throughout the world, and invited theatre companies from around the world not only to give performances but to live, work, and collaborate with each other. In the true meaning of the word “festival” the diverse cultures of these groups were highlighted and celebrated. And while acknowledging each other’s cultural similarities and differences, the stimulus provided by such encounters spawned entirely new notions of theatre and undoubtedly many new forms of culture.

In 1982 the Toga International Performing Arts Festival marked its opening event with 12 theater groups from 6 countries and attracted over 13,000 spectators. Toga Festival lasted until 1999 and in the following year was replaced by the Toga Summer Arts Program which includes a program that trains young people as drama directors or performers. 


Noh Performances

Noh is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. The repertoire is normally limited to a specific set of historical plays. A Noh performance often lasts all day and consists of five Noh plays interspersed with shorter, humorous kyōgen pieces.

While the field of Noh performance is extremely codified with an emphasis on tradition rather than innovation, some performers do compose new plays or revive historical ones that are not a part of the standard repertoire. Works blending Noh with other theatrical traditions have also been produced.