SPAC Shizuoka Performing Arts Center
The Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) was founded in 1995 by Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, aiming to provide a creative base for the artists of the performing arts on a national and international basis.
The Center has a Department of Arts which is consisted of directors, choreographers, designers, actors, dancers, and technical and administrative staff, forming a resident company SPAC.
The Department of Arts is generating programs of creation, presentation and education as well as programs of exchange and collaboration with artists and institutions of Japan and abroad. In 1999 it hosted the 2nd THEATRE OLYMPICS and also has been organizing annual international festival, SPRING ARTS FESTIVAL SHIZUOKA since 2000.
The Center has facilities for performances, rehearsals, workshops, classes, lectures and other activities, as well as for lodging and administration.
The site, Shizuoka Performing Arts Park, located in the natural environment of the Shizuoka city, includes UDO Open Air Theatre, Ellipse Theatre DAENDO Indoor, a studio for rehearsals and classes, dormitories, guest houses, restaurants, and an administration office. The Center also has an indoor theatre, SHIZUOKA ARTS THEATRE in downtown of the city.
Chairman of Board of Directors: Jun Matsui
General Artistic Director: Satoshi Miyagi
Contact: 79-4 Ikeda, Suruga-ku Shizuoka City, Shizuoka 422-8005
Tel. +81-54-203-5730 Fax +81-54-203-5732
Satoshi MIYAGI : director
General Artistic Director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center
Born in 1959, in Tokyo. Satoshi MIYAGI studied aesthetics at Tokyo University where he created a performance group and started his career as director and actor. In this period itself he developed a training method for actors based on oriental gymnastics. In 1986 he started performing solo, basing his performance on modern novels. His shows were described as ‘the birth of a new clown art, founded upon a concrete storytelling technique with an element of dance.’
In 1990, he founded a new theatre company "KU NA’UKA". His repertoires are mainly great classics as Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. He is renown by fusing the Japanese traditional theater style and the European text.
From 1993, KU NA’UKA was invited many times in foreign countries, such as France, Italy, Spain, USA, China, Korea and India, and presented “SALOME”, “TENSYU-MONOGATARI”, "MEDEA".
He directed "ELEKTRA" by SCOT together with Tadashi Suzuki in the 1st Theater Olympics (Greece) in 1995. His work won the Grand Prix of the 3rd Asahi Performing Arts Awards (2004), the 2nd Asahi Beer Art Prize (2005).
KU NA’UKA was chosen as gala opening of the theatre Claude Lévi-Strauss in QUAI BRANLY national museum newly completed in Paris, and has performed "MAHABHARATA" in October 2006.
His best known works are: Sophocles "ANTIGONE", Euripides "MEDEA", Shakespeare "OTHELLO", Kyoka Izumi "TENSYU-MONOGATARI", Yukio Mishima "TROPICAL TREE".
He was a councilor of the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a representative of Japan committee of BeSeTo (Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo) Theatre Festival international committee till 2007.
Miyagi has been appointed as General Artistic Director of SPAC - Shizuoka Performing Arts Center - since April of 2007.
He has been created his masterpieces with its residential company SPAC : Kyoka Izumi "DEMON LAKE", Shakespeare "HAMLET", Juro Kara "TWO LADIES" and etc.
Also he organizes an annual international theatre festival "Spring Arts Festival Shizuoka", inviting contemporary theatre productions from all over the world. He has great reputation from theatre world as the producer and organizer, to show the festival and theatres as an actual event for ordinary people.
He also starts various personnel training projects for the youth in Shizuoka, aiming to open the theatre as the window which people can see the world itself.