Theatre of Confinement and 8th Sense Rap
(幽閉の劇場と8感のラップ）
(2025)
Commissioned by Whenever Wherever Festival 2025 (Tokyo, Japan)
Concept: Mina Nishimura
Design and Delivery: Tetsu Umehara, Riku Yamakawa and Mina Nishimura
Assistant: Momoka Yamashita
Production Management: Kanako Iwanaka, Keiichi Hayashi
[wwfes 2025]
Organized by Body Arts Laboratory
Co-Organized by Minato City Sports Fureai Culture and Health Foundation (Kiss Port Foundation)
“Theatre of Enclosure and 8th Senses Rap” was an experiential performance piece in which participants were gently abducted, and then confined to a minivan traveling on the expressway in Tokyo. Various attempts were made to modulate and expand their physical senses, actively intervening with their personal memories and flow of consciousness using their bodies in the present moment. The participants wore eye masks throughout the experience, with red cellophane covering only the small gaps that allowed for visibility, so they were unable to visually perceive people or objects. All they could see was a soft red world with orb-like lights moving around, flickering.
*A review of “Theater of Confinement and the 8th Sense Rap” (Japanese) is now available to read as a short sci-fi horror novel “Hōhatsu (or Unkempt Hair)” by an award winning writer Sakiko Kawano