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So to say that I accumulate every day
into a work in different parts.

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So my work is in a way a combination of
things that I feel real that I feel important to myself.

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I like the fakeness of theater, a degraded version of reality.

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The fakeness is what I find interesting.

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There's something about seeing yourself objectively...

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when being in a painful or depressing situation
to be able to wonder why I'm in this situation,

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to question whether I got here myself or
whether I'm being put in this situation.

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It is possible (in theatre) to distance yourself and think about it and not let the emotions of the moment take over too much.

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I am getting busy with my theater work

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and I have been given a position in Japan,

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I feel i have to think a lot about the responsibility
and correctness of my words.

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I have the feeling that if I do something
wrong it would not be forgiven.

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For example ethical standards.

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What is right in this moment is being criticized next
year, such things are happening every day.

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I think we are updating the sense of ethics every day.

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I think there is a huge possibility that a work may
be perceived as deviating from this kind of “rightness”.

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Even if we can perform something now 30 years
from now it might be considered wrong.

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Performing arts have an impact on peoples values.

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And this power is on the borderline
of what is right and what is wrong.

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I would like to keep making work that can shake people up.

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I don’t usually read a lot.

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When I decide to write a new piece
I start by reading related literature.

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In Japan, it's more common that the writer of the
script and the director are the same person.

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So it was only natural for me as well to start working this way.

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Also, when I write I have the intention of directing
and a vision of how to put it on stage…

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which is incorporated in the work and influences the way I write.
So, writing and directing is inseparable for me.

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In terms of practical issues, I cannot produce a large
number of new works, so I reuse what I have written

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and there are parts of me that don't fully understand
the value or power of my own work

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but by working on the piece over and
over again I can calm down and face it.

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By devoting myself to directing I am able
to understand the work and myself better.

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I do recreation but creating a new work takes a lot of energy,

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so I got quite burned out by this in my twenties.

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I became very tired of the repetition
of creating and then disappearing,

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and I wondered if it would be possible
to cherish each piece for a long time.

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When I started traveling to Europe more often

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I was able to live in Japan without being conscious of being
female or my Japanese identity as a Japanese-Asian

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but when I went to Europe I became aware that I was an Asian,

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and that was my starting point for creating my pieces.

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I believe that beauty and ugliness have had a strong
influence on young women since they were children,

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and the standards of beauty and ugliness
are also very much influenced by the West.

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I wanted to depict Orientalism, and as an entry point,
I thought about the problem of beauty and ugliness.

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Therefore I used the story of Madama Butterfly as a basis.

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In the original story a man who came to Japan from
abroad and a woman who lived in Japan met,

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fell in love, had a child, and the man disappears.

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The original story is a tragedy.

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I went to a place called Roppongi. Roppongi is an area (in Tokyo) where there are a lot of rich foreign businessmen,

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and there were so called gaijin hunters who also appear in my piece, which I encountered when I went drinking in Roppongi.

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They are women who still have an admiration for white men.

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So, I didn't only want to show the one-sided Western
gaze into the east and depict the tragic Asian heroine
(like in the original Madama Butterfly),

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but also try to depict the japanese longing for
the west. I wanted to create a story like that.

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I think narratives cannot be born out of absolute flatness.

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For Madama Butterfly as well. For me it was going outside of my comfort zone, experiencing something new.

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And from this experience there is a new story born inside of me.

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Generating narrative is a very special thing, that can
only be achieved with something uncomfortable.

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When creating my own work I refer
to things that were done in the past,

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and since those people have already done so many things
I learn from them and connect them to my own expression.

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I always want to create works based on the discomfort I feel
living in the society and the things I feel in my own life.

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When I make a work of art I want to depict
something more complex than just one idea.

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I want to create a piece by looking at things
or happenings from various angles.

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I feel I want to create works that do not have one clear
way of understandig, that are not black or white.

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The more you think about a topic,
the more you get stuck in the mire,

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and I want to keep it as complicated as possible.

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I'm not sure if it's complete or not

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but I think that the script is made stronger by
the fact that I put various points of view into it.

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Since I am a woman I have a female body.

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I do not think I can escape from the fact that I write
from the perspective of such a woman.

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For example things that women can not put into words or
they have no language in a society still focused on men.

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I don't only consider women but also animals. But I have
a desire to find words for things that are unspoken of.

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When actors put these things into words on stage it becomes very powerful. I think it has a kind of monstrosity every time.

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What I think about now at my age

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I have a female body that can give birth to a child,

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and I contemplate whether I want to do that or not.

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But what happens to me if I do that as a writer? I'm a bit afraid.

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There are many people who don't return
to writing, or to their activities as artists.

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To phrase it very simply: I would like this system to
change in a way so it becomes easier for women (to come back).

