Tokyo Festival Farm

Asian Performing Arts Camp Open Call for (Online) Participants[Deadline: Sunday, June 20, 2021 11:59 PM (JST)]▲ Taken during the online programs of Tokyo Festival APAF2020 Lab

Beyond borders, beyond the body, towards a new future for Asian performing arts
The Asian Performing Arts Camp is a Tokyo Festival Farm program where performing arts practitioners working
throughout Asia bring together ideas and themes relevant to their work, joining each other in cultivating their fieldof practice through discussions and collaborative research. Due to the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the program will be conducted online.
Participants of the Tokyo Festival Farm Asian Performing Arts Camp will be determined through an open call.
Directors, choreographers, playwrights, dramaturgs, producers, or any artists who work closely with theperforming arts are encouraged to apply. (The camp will be conducted in English. Participation is free.)*As of 2021, the Tokyo Festival APAF Lab has been renamed Tokyo Festival Farm Asian Performing Arts Camp.

▶ Online Orientation for Applicants
Wednesday, June 9, 2021 8:00 PM (JST)・An online orientation for potential applicants will be live streamed on the Tokyo Festival YouTube channel.
・Refer to the Tokyo Festival Website for further details (https://tokyo-festival.jp/2020/en/program/farm2021/).
｜Tokyo Festival Website https://tokyo-festival.jp
Organized by Tokyo Festival Executive Committee [Toshima City, Toshima Mirai Cultural Foundation, Tokyo
Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture (Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre & Arts Council Tokyo)]Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan in the fiscal 2021

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Asian Performing Arts Camp Overview
The Tokyo Festival Farm Asian Performing Arts Camp is a 2 month program where artists gather online anddevelop ideas through lectures, discussions, and a collaborative research process. The program will conclude witha presentation by the participants, where the artists will share the progress of their research with the generalpublic. The participants will be accompanied by facilitators JK Anicoche (taking on the role for a second
consecutive year) and Keiko Yamaguchi (APAF2020 Lab participant) in their journey of inquiry into the possibilities
of collaborations that transcend national borders and cultures.
◼︎ How the Program Will Be Conducted- The program will be held mainly online (online tools such as Zoom, Slack, miro, and One Drive will be used forcommunication)
Research:

Participants will conduct research and fieldwork based on their own artist foci or fields of interest,
while also investigating the possibility of collaborative research with fellow participants.

Discussions:

Participants will engage in discussions based on the lectures, workshops, and performative sessions
they experience throughout the program.

Lectures, Workshops:

The Tokyo Festival Farm Director and other guests will give lectures to the participants.

Presentations:

Participants will conduct presentations where they will share the progress of their research. The 2
month program includes a mid-term and final presentation.
*The final presentation will be conducted online, followed by a feedback session with insight fromguest critics. Online archives of the stream will be open to the public.

●●●

The program encourages its participants to prioritize diverse fieldwork in their research, while complying
to each locality’s regulations and protocols, and ensuring the safety of both the participant and others.
Participants will also be in regular communication (via Slack etc.) on days where no activity is scheduled.
English will be the primary language for communication among participants. English-to-Japaneseinterpretation will be provided for the final presentation, as well as for occasional communication with theprogram staff.

◼︎ Program Schedule
Wednesday, August 25 – Monday, November 1, 2021
*Program activities will take place across an estimated 20 days within the period listed above.
*Each day of the program will consist of 3 to 4 hours of activities (excepting occasions such as the presentation andcore period).
First Phase

8/25 (Wed), 8/31 (Tue), 9/7 (Tue), 9/15 (Wed), 9/22 (Wed)*The first session (Wednesday, August 25) will be dedicated to orientation.

Midterm Presentation

Rehearsals: 9/28 (Tue)Midterm Presentation: 9/29 (Wed)Second Phase

10/6 (Wed), 10/12 (Tue), 10/13 (Wed), 10/14 (Thu),
10/18 (Mon), 10/21 (Thu), 10/25 (Mon)*October 12-14 is the program's “core” period, with sessions longer than 3 hours.
*Participants will go to see other Tokyo Festival programs on days not listed above.

Final Presentation /10/26 (Tue) - 10/31 (Sun)Feedback Session*4 to 5 days in this period will be dedicated to rehearsals, final presentations, and the feedback
session. Dates will be announced at the first session.

Wrap Up/ Closing Ceremony

11/1 (Mon)*Participants will be provided with a more precise schedule by the end of July. (Note: The programs wereconducted between 2-5PM JST in 2020)*The above dates do not include time for independent research.
*Participants may be asked to join additional activities, such as meetings with members of other Tokyo Festival
Farm programs, on dates not listed above.
*The above schedule is accurate as of June 1st and subject to minor alterations.
To ensure a safe creative space that is non-discriminatory to individuals of all social categories,
the Tokyo Festival Farm will follow the “Tokyo Festival Farm Guidelines”(https://tokyo-festival.jp/2020/en/program/farm2021/). We expect all participants to adhere to theseprinciples.
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Asian Performing Arts Camp: A Message from the Facilitators
On Life Performance Ecology - JK Anicoche
A year into the global pandemic, humanity have been forced to reassess and negotiate what needs to be left behind andwhat we need to bring with us to the future. As the situation expedited procedures for reimagining borders andexchanges, artists in their own immediate and extended communities ruminate on what objects, ideas, ways andsystems are essential to life, to society, to environment and to greater ecology at large, and to performance-making.
As we rethink necessary performance processes, procedures and production to support life and one’s immediate
ecology, we hope that this year’s Asian Performing Arts Camp be a shared space and time for exchanging seeds andresources that can cultivate and nourish life past these challenging grounds. Gathering online or on digital cloud while
coming from different places and acknowledging the inequality and inequity of privilege heightened and made apparent
by the pandemic, in this international trans field exchange, only our shared humanity sets the conditions for eradicating
border lines and for creation of new solidarities and human-to-human connection. We gather. We collectively till thepotent ground of the future. We create. We live. We act.
JK Anicoche
The Philippines​

JK Anicoche is a Manila-based performance maker working at the intersection of art, culture, anddevelopment. His practice ranges from developing performances in a black box to devising works with/invarious communities. He is the Artistic Director of contemporary cultural laboratory Sipat Lawin Inc., and its
anti-disciplinary collective Komunidad X, Festival Director of Karnabal: Performance and Social Innovation,
the Virgin Labfest Virtual Edition 2020 and kXchange.org. His recent engagements have taken him to New
York, Taiwan, Shanghai, and Japan, where he presented the “Sand (a)isles” project at Festival/Tokyo 2019.
He took part in APAF2020 Lab as co-facilitator.

Beyond the Window, Through Your Room - Keiko Yamaguchi
It has been over a year since we started to face a world with restrictions on moving and gathering. However, by virtue ofthese restrictions, many new gates have opened up for us. For me, last year’s APAF Lab was an example of that. Unlike
usual international collaborations, this gathering is based in a very intimate space, your own room. It takes place withinyour everyday life. The beauty of what I witnessed through the Zoom window last year was a microcosm of life in thecity of each participant, which I was encountering for the first time.
My dream for this year’s program is to open up a little wider the gate we discovered last year. Through the Zoom
window, it is as if we can enter your room and go beyond those walls into wider society. I am anticipating the
emergence of a new ecosystem between the performing arts and life from the online exchanges between the artists andeach of their cities. Bring your ideas, the task and the experiment you wish to attempt, to this camp. Let us touch thesoil of each other's land, know it, water it, and cultivate it. I hope you can feel free to fail sometimes without fear. I’mvery much looking forward to the chance to fertilise each other's land together.
Keiko Yamaguchi
Japan

Photo: Koichiro Kojima

Kyoto-based actor. In 2011, she started her own theatre group BRDG in order to create performances basedon fieldwork and interviews with people living in Kyoto. BRDG focuses on Kyoto as a multicultural city as well
as exploring the act of interpreting in performance. Collaborating with Philippine Educational Theater
Association (PETA) and young people in both Japan and Philippines, she presented a performance“Fureru~Haplos” in February, and livestreamed an online piece “HELLO” in December 2020. As an actor, she
appeared in performances of Yukichi Matsumoto, marebito theatre company, shitatame and ricca ricca*festa(Okinawa) and so on. Keiko Yamaguchi was an Asia Fellow 2017, APAF2020 Lab artist and currently amember of Seinendan. She also works at a community cafe in Kyoto, broadcasting a multilingual radio
programme and sometimes works as a fake Maiko at NPO Swing.

◼︎ Asian Performing Arts Camp - Visual Image
The below image is a depiction of what the facilitators envision as the “Asian Performing Arts Camp” model ofinternational collaboration. Applicants of the program will be asked to answer the following question in the application
form.

Online performance ecology
This image is our image of this year’s transfield cloudcommunity / ecology / farm cultivating / nourishing life
performances. Take a moment to feel and see.
Question: Based on your interests and practice, what
performance research and/or processes do you wish /need / want to explore and co-create with your immediate
locality and with Asian Performing Arts Camp community?
How do you want to cultivate these ideas?
3Asian Performing Arts Camp Terms of Participation◼︎ Eligibility
Participants must meet all seven conditions.
1. Must be based in Asia.
2. Must have played a key role in the creative aspect of performing arts productions or projects in the past.
3. Must be aged 35 or younger (as a general rule).
4. Must be able to attend the entirety of the program (refer to p.2 for the program’s schedule).
5. Must be able to cooperate with the advertisement and PR activities conducted by Tokyo Festival for theparticipant’s program.
6. Must have access to a suitable online environment that includes the following:- A secure internet connection.
- A robust internet connection able to support group video calls, video streaming, large file downloads,etc.
- A device on which the participant can use online tools such as Zoom’s video calls, miro, Slack, or
One Drive (the tools used may vary according to participant circumstances and program content)*System requirements for Zoom: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023- We do not encourage the use of smartphones as the only device for communication.
7. Participants are expected to demonstrate the following attitudes and interests:- A willingness to actively communicate in English.
- A motivation to communicate with people of different backgrounds and values, and gain new
perspectives.
- An interest in exploring and practicing communication strategies in international collaboration
settings.
- The intention to continue international activities in the performing arts after Asian Performing ArtsCamp.
◼︎ No Participation Fee◼︎ Support● Participants will receive up to 100,000 JPY (transfer fees, tax, and similar costs will be deducted from thisamount) for setting up the necessary Wi-fi environment to participate in the program, as well as forresearch, materials, and production costs (props etc.) for their final presentation.
● Support provided by the Communication Design Team: assistance in intercultural communication; lectureson conducting discussions; the creation of rules for communication among participants; help withactivity-related communication; etc.
*Discussions will be conducted in English, and will include highly professional and abstract language. The
Communication Design Team will assist in creating a space where participants can engage in discussion
regardless of English capabilities.
◼︎ Number of Participants: Around 8 members◼︎ Application Schedule
The selection will be conducted by the program facilitators (JK Anikoche/Keiko Yamaguchi) and Tokyo Festival Farm
director Junnosuke Tada.
Open Call Period

Application Deadline: Sunday, June 20, 2021 11:59 PM (JST)- Apply through designated online form.

Initial Selection: Application screening

Results will be sent to applicants via email by Sunday, July 4, 2021.
- The selection will be based on information provided throughthe application form.

Final Selection: Online Interview

Interview Period: Monday, July 5 - Wednesday, July 7, 2021
- The interviews will be conducted online. (via Zoom)

Confirmation

Results of the interview will be sent out to applicants aroundThursday, July 15, 2021.

*All applicants will receive a notice of the result of their application via email. Please be sure to set your devices toreceive emails.
4◼︎ How To Apply
Fill out the application from the below link.
｜ Application Form: https://form.run/@apac2021 *We do not accept submission in languages other than English[Form]
1. Full name or artist name- Preferred gender pronouns (he, she, they, etc.)
2. Nationality
3. City in which you are based (if you have more than one, list them all)
4. Date of birth
5. Email address
6. Mailing address (Japanese residents only / please write in Japanese)
7. Phone number (include the country code)
8. Profession (and organizational affiliation if any)
9. Profile (150 words or less)
10. Website (if any)
11. Video links (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) of artworks you participated in (if any).
- What role did you play in the creation of the artwork?
*Please apply viewing restrictions as applicable.
12. Your reason for applying to the program. (150 words or less)
13. With an eye to the message from the facilitators on page 3 of this form and your understanding of the
Asian Performing Arts Camp, please answer the following question (300 words or less).
Question:
Based on your interests and practice, what performance research and/or processes do you wish / need /want to explore and co-create with your immediate locality and with Asian Performing Arts Camp
community? How do you want to cultivate these ideas?
14. How would you best describe your English abilities? (Select from below)
a. Able to hold a basic conversation, and introduce yourself.
b. Able to explain the nature of your practice, with some preparation beforehand.
c. Able to explain views and opinions in your area of expertise, using abstract concepts.
d. Able to engage in discussion, based on c.
- Is there anything you would like to add to the above? (if any)
15. Select the equipment you plan to use during the program. (Select all that apply)*For information on the required online environment, refer to the Eligibility section of this document. (p.4)
16. The type of internet service you will be using.
17. Dates/timeframes when you are unavailable for interview between, Monday, July 5th 12:00-21:00(JST) /Tuesday, July 6th, 12:00-21:00(JST) / Wednesday, July 7th, 10:00-12:00(JST).
18. Other Tokyo Festival Farm programs you plan to apply to (if any/select from below).
*Applicants may apply to other Farm programs conducting open calls within the same period.
19. For artists under the age of 29 and residing in Japan - Do you want to apply to the Young Farmers Forumas well as the Camp? (Applicants of the Camp program will be exempted from any application paperwork
for the Young Farmers Forum open call).
(For more details, see Young Farmers Forum Open Call: https://tokyo-festival.jp/2020/program/farm2021/ )20. Any other information you wish to relay.
◼︎ All personal information will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for the purpose of contacting theapplicant for the purpose of this program.

［Inquiries］ APAF Office Email: apaf@tokyo-festival.jp
Phone: +81(0)3-4213-4293 (Open weekdays from 10 AM – 7 PM JST)*All information listed in the above form is current as of June 1, 2021, and is subject to change.

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From APAF to Tokyo Festival Farm
We are pleased to announce that APAF (Asian Performing Arts Farm) will transform into the new Tokyo Festival Farm.
While the former served as a Tokyo Festival initiative to nurture talent and create a network for emerging Asian artists tocollaborate and experiment together–beyond stylistic, national or cultural boundaries–the latter integrates research,development, and educational programs previously run by Tokyo Festival and Festival/Tokyo and seeks to broaden andelevate its overall vision.
This year, two directors will lead the new initiative. APAF’s Junnosuke Tada will continue to serve as Director alongwith Kaku Nagashima, newly appointed as Co-Director. We will establish guidelines based on the Communication Design
position introduced in APAF2020, and are fully committed to promoting meaningful communication based on respect forothers, and creating a harassment-free environment that allows individuals to freely explore their creativity.
The performing arts have transcended borders and brought people with different backgrounds together. With
developments in communication and transportation, globalization has made the lives of others more familiar. Today, we live
in an increasingly transcultural and transdisciplinary environment, in which frameworks such as nationality, ethnicity, andlanguage begin to dissolve and diverse individuals move across various fields.
At present, the word “international” refers to “the mixing of previously distinct cultures” and “circulating outside of
the country,” but in future the meaning will likely shift towards indicating “the values of our complex world where different
elements are constantly mixing with one another.” We are also seeing the role of the performing arts, a mirror that reflects
our world, transform.
As an international initiative to nurture young talent, Tokyo Festival Farm’s mission is to offer an opportunity for
artists to experience firsthand a transcultural and transdisciplinary environment that dissolves borders and allows them toencounter diverse values, with the aim of strengthening their ability to make sense of our increasingly complex world; toproduce professionals who transcend nations and cultures in their interdisciplinary work; and to provide a sustainable platform
to maintain and achieve the above. We believe this endeavor has the power to resist the emerging waves of division that
accompany increasing diversification around the world.
We hope you’ll continue to support our renewed and transformed performing arts Farm into the future.

Tokyo Festival Farm 2021 Theme: Why Cities?
Last year, under the theme “Anti-Body Experiment,” APAF2020 reassessed the potential of the online world andphysical bodies, experimenting with developing resistance against “not being able to gather.” For this year’s Tokyo Festival
Farm 2021, we propose the theme “Why Cities?” in consideration of the variety around the world regarding COVID-19
infections, from spread to containment. We question our metropolitan ways of life, each of which has distinct regional andnational characteristics while addressing the common issues of economics, efficiency, consumption, and production. How
will things change in the future, and what will remain the same? How will those changes affect each or all of us? Who gets todecide our values, fluctuating as they do with scale and distance? For the full range of people involved in this initiative, both
Farm participants and audience members alike, we offer this as a prompt for collective thought.
June 2021
Junnosuke Tada, Tokyo Festival Farm Director

About Tokyo Festival FarmTokyo Festival Farm is a new framework that brings together all development initiatives within Tokyo Festival, a festival for
performing arts. It was created by combining Asian Performing Arts Farm (APAF), a platform promoting exchange and growthamong young artists in Asia, with Festival/Tokyo (F/T)’s Research Program and Education & Outreach Program . There are three
categories: “School,” a place to meet and learn, “Internship,” an on-site training opportunity, and “Lab,” for exploring researchand development. By having this range of programs based around open calls and developing a collaborative interdisciplinary andinterregional approach, Tokyo Festival Farm aims to foster professionals capable of free movement across all kinds of borders,which will become increasingly fluid in the future.
Refer to the Tokyo Festival Website for further details https://tokyo-festival.jp/2020/en/program/farm2021/