Shie Minamino / OSUSHI
OsuShiEGypt
- Date
10.17 (Sat) 19:00
10.18 (Sun) 12:00 ◆♡
10.18 (Sun) 18:00 ★
10.19 (Mon) 15:00 ★
- Venue
- KYOTO ART CENTERMulti-purpose Hall
- Duration
120 min (TBC)
- Price
Adult: ¥3,500
Youth*, Students: ¥3,000
High School Students & Younger: ¥1,000
Pair: ¥6,500
Day tickets: Advance ticket price+¥500 (High School Students & Younger: ￥1,000)*25 and under
- Language
Japanese with English surtitles
- Notes
No admission for preschoolers
With our hands and our minds
We ruminate on faith and the afterlife
In 2025, Shie Minamino received the Playwright Award at the 15th Sengawa Theater Competition for OsuShiEGypto, a sci-fi-esque play, in which the protagonist searches for the land of resurrection to create a bio-mummy. Situating this piece as the first act, BeforEGypto, Minamino has created its sequel, AfterEGypto, for this year’s Kyoto Experiment. The performance of both acts together bring the narrative to its conclusion.
Minamino, who claims to be incapable of fully believing in god or Buddha, substitutes God the Father with Masako, her real-life mother, on stage. Together they gather the elements that make up humans at a supermarket, and make a fumbling attempt to uncover the truth behind life and death that nevertheless proves to be earnest and genuine. The subsequent new chapter centers on a scene of judgement in the afterlife. Even without a strong religious background, people somehow seem to believe in the existence of the afterworld and expect to be judged. However, what exactly defines faith? Does belief in stories of the afterlife affect our lives in the present? Our imaginations, something we only possess while we are alive, are put to the test when we encounter the unknown in the course of our lives.
OSUSHI Talk
After the 10.18 (Sun) 18:00 performance
Artist Profile
Shie Minamino
Kyoto, Japan
Minamino is a playwright, director and costume designer based in Kyoto. Considering the stage as a “place where anyone can stand on should the need arise”, she explores different ways of making and watching the works at various places and with different people. “Through my stage works, I am getting my own back on things I regret,” she says. “By creating my work, I’m revenging/revising. I want to get payback onstage for the things that I want to redo or rethink in my life, not through violence, but by using the power of my work.” Based on this belief, she resolutely re-examines pressing personal issues and presents works that elevate the person’s life into a social response.
Selected and performed in ROHM Theatre Kyoto + Kyoto Art Center KIPPU Under 35 Creative Support Program 2019. Received the best playwright prize in the 15th Sengawa Theater Drama Competition. Selected as a 2026 Saison Fellow I by the Saison Foundation.”
OSUSHI
Kyoto (Japan)
OSUSHI is a performing arts group, founded by the costume designer Shie Minamino in 2016. It adopts a novel approach whereby the same person is responsible for the writing, directing, and costumes, while the performers explore fabric and text internally and externally.
OSUSHI’s major works include Momotaro (Tokyo, 2021), in which cast members are called for to perform the dog, monkey and pheasant for the famous Japanese old tale of the same title Momotaro, at specified place and time, initiating the story that concludes with defeating ogres, together with the three animals who volunteered with very little rewards,
Wedding, Attendance, Absence (Hyogo, 2023), a participatory stage work that reconsiders the ceremony of marriage in contemporary Japan with a reference to Romeo and Juliet which was written more than 400 years ago, God’s Whirlwind Marriage (Kyoto, 2024) which questions the modern marriage system from the perspectives of the god and human, with Kojiki, the oldest historical book of Japan and an official guidebook for solving mysteries in hand, and OsuShiEGypto (Tokyo, 2025), a theatrical work by four blood-related women, Minamino’s mother, aunt, great-aunt and Minamino herself.