Search
2019 Kyoto Prize Laureates
Theater, Cinema
/ Stage Director
1939 -
Founder and Director, Théâtre du Soleil
Did You Really Know to Whom You Were Giving This Prize?
2019
11 /11 Mon
13:00 - 16:00
Place：Kyoto International Conference Center
Capacity：1,500 persons (FCFS)
Admission Free
Trajectories of Le Théâtre du Soleil
2019
11 /13 Wed
18:30 - 20:00
Place：Masaru Ibuka Auditorium, International Conference Center, Waseda University
Capacity：400 persons (FCFS)
Admission Free
Mrs. Mnouchkine, the founder and director of the Théâtre du Soleil, has been continuously producing masterpieces with historical and political themes. Referring to traditional performances of both the East and the West, she has been innovating theatrical expressions through her collaborative creations based on the methodology of her unique theatrical organization which eschews hierarchical order.
Mrs. Ariane Mnouchkine has led the Théâtre du Soleil, a theater company she founded in 1964, for over half a century, and has continuously produced internationally acclaimed masterpieces. At the root of her superb talent lies a strong belief that theater is a form of art that should be collaboratively perceived, created, and enjoyed. She has gathered diverse talents and fostered their high mentality and rampant creativity by exploring and developing their latent skills and imaginations.
While producing for the stage, Mrs. Mnouchkine first inquired what theater is or should be and reconsidered its basic principles. This resulted in her original, hierarchy-free theatrical organization with its unique methodology for stage creation. She also considered the audience to be an important member of the “creators” indispensable to theater and attempted to build strong relationships between performer, director, and audience. Since the Théâtre du Soleil started its activities in the Cartoucherie in the outskirts of Paris, its performances have been appreciated as being like festive topos where all kinds of people encountered one another. It could be said that the Théâtre du Soleil embodies the ideal of “public theater.”
In order to keep her audiences emotionally engaged, Mrs. Mnouchkine pursued a theatrical method that emphasized physicality by referring to traditional performances such as circus, commedia dell’arte, Japanese Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and Indian Kathakali. She reconstructed them using modern sensibilities and explored a method of utilizing actors’ improvisation techniques, which culminated in her Tambours sur la digue (Drums on the Dam) (1999) inspired by Bunraku. In this work, she attempted to create a comprehensive art form that blended theater with various other genres such as dance, music, and literature. Among experimental productions within the field of contemporary theater, her achievements have been remarkable.
In the early 1980s, Mrs. Mnouchkine produced a cycle of three Shakespeare plays starting with Richard II (1981) and demonstrated her deep insight and superb directorial skills in her approach to classical plays. As in her prior works like 1789, la révolution doit sʼarrêter à la perfection du bonheur (1789 or The Revolution Must Only Stop at the Perfection of Happiness) (1970), she tried to shed new light on the chaotic darkness that plagued the modern age, by taking a novel view of her contemporaries’ own history along with them. She preserved a reasonable amount of entertainment value while also strongly warning against contemporary historical and political developments. For example, she examined Cambodian genocide through the epic, LʼHistoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge (The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia) (1985) written by Hélène Cixous, and depicted the hardships of refugees through their numerous testimonies in Le Dernier Caravansérail (The Last Caravanserai) (2003). Mrs. Mnouchkine’s innovations to theatrical expression have been globally influential.
For these reasons, the Inamori Foundation is pleased to present the 2019 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy to Mrs. Ariane Mnouchkine.
Profile is at the time of the award.
Theater is Human Art, Par Excellence
In this installment of the series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs. Ariane Mnouchkine, the 2019 Kyoto Prize laureate in the Arts and Philosophy category.
Le théâtre, c’est l’art de l’être humain par excellence
Dans la série Parole aux lauréats du Prix de Kyoto, nous interviewons des lauréats du Prix de Kyoto afin de développer les idées abordées lors de leurs discours officiels et de mieux connaître leur philosophie, leur processus de réflexion et leur attitude en tant qu’explorateur dans leur domaine respectif. Voici l’interview de Madame Ariane Mnouchkine,...