Mammalian Diving Reflex / Darren O’Donnell　　All The Sex I’ve Ever Had

Talking about sex: An insight into the age of super-longevity

With their works that fully engage with the local community, Mammalian Diving Reflex connects people in surprising ways that are tailored to the location and society in which they are performing. They captured the hearts of Kyoto’s children with The Children’s Choice Awards at Kyoto Experiment 2017, and now they are making their long-awaited return.

Can you tell us a story about sex? This is a piece of “dialogue-based” theater in which seniors over 60 with diverse backgrounds and a wealth of experience talk about their lives through their own sexual experiences. The Japanese seniors, who are of different genders, nationalities, and levels of physical ability, come together to share stories about sex that are not normally discussed in public, and go on to speak candidly about their lives in their own words. To talk about sex is to talk about life. In some ways the work is about courage, but it is also a story of intergenerational dialogue, in which the baton is passed from the elderly to the younger generation.

In today’s society that tends to focus only on the cultures of the younger generations, we can surely broaden our perspectives on the future by listening to the thoughts, views, and life stories of our seniors. This is the Japanese premiere of the highly acclaimed work that has been performed all over the world in Europe, North America, Asia and elsewhere, through workshops with locally gathered cast members.

#generation
#identity
#memory
#personalhistory
#sex
#theater

3.26 (Fri) 19:00
3.27 (Sat) 17:00 ★
3.28 (Sun) 17:00

Doors open 30 min. prior to the performance.
★Post-show Talk

Duration: 100min

Age limit:
Recommended for ages 15 and over.
Audiences aged 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

Accessibility:
Wheelchair seats, use of assistance dogs, Japanese & English surtitles, sign language interpretation on stage, Japanese audioguides and complimentary tickets for helpers are available.

Auditorium, Kyoto Art Center

Mammalian Diving Reflex

Toronto, Canada

Mammalian Diving Reflex is an art-research collective founded in Toronto in 1993 and led by performance artist Darren O’Donnell. The company creates site and social-specific performance events, theatre productions, participatory gallery installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts to foster dialogue and dismantle barriers between individuals of all backgrounds by bringing people together in new and unusual ways. Their playful and provocative socially-engaged art, which they term Social Acupuncture, has been performed in over 82 cities in 27 countries. In Japan, Haircuts by Children, in which a group of children are given training by professional hairdressers and then offer free haircuts to members of the public, was held at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in 2017. In the same year, The Children’s Choice Awards, in which a group of children become the official jury for an arts festival, was held at Kyoto Experiment 2017.

Darren O’Donnell

Canada

Born in Canada in 1965, Daren O’Donnell is a novelist, playwright and performance artist and holds a Masters Degree in Urban Planning. He founded the collective Mammalian Diving Reflex in 1993 and his unique method of ‘Social Acupuncture’ is highly evaluated worldwide. He continues to create unique work with people from all different backgrounds, nationalities and generations.

Directed and written by Mammalian Diving Reflex / Darren O'Donnell
Produced and written by Annalise Prodor & Ryan Lewis
Production and writing assistance by Kathy Vuu
Environment design and technical direction by Alice Fleming
Transcription by Ngawang Luding and others.

Featuring Seniors from Chiba, Toyama, Hyogo and Miyagi
Sound Designer and MC: Yo Irie
Japanese-English interpretation, script translation, surtitle translation: Art Translators Collective (Nobuko Aiso, Kanoko Tamura, Hibiki Mizuno, Kyle Yamada)
Stage Manager: Yoshiko Haraguchi
Lighting Designer: Ayumi Kito
Sound Director: Atsushi Ukioka
Accessibility Coordinator: Miyuki Tanaka
Stage sign Language Interpreter: Yuko Kato, Ichiro Hashimoto, Rika Mizuno
Supervision of sign language: NPO Theatre Accessibility network
Audio guide Narrator: Kahori Saiki
Project Coordinator: Miki Nozaki
Main visual Photographer: Katsumi Omori
Project Director: Akane Nakamura (precog co., LTD.)
Project Manager: Hitomi Sato (precog co., LTD.)
Interns: Nana Shimojo, Haruka Ueda, Yuka Okazawa (precog co., LTD.)

Production: precog co., LTD.
In co-operation with NPO Theatre Accessibility network, City Lights, Chupki
Sponsorship: Embassy of Canada
Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan through the Japan Arts Council and National Arts Council, Japan Foundation for Regional Art Activities [Intergenerational Thinking]
Co-presented by The Nippon Foundation DIVERSITY IN THE ARTS, precog co., LTD.
Presented by Kyoto Experiment

*This presentation of All the Sex I‛ve Ever Had has been made possible in part thanks to grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council touring programs.