Kukangendai at ausland / Sunday, 30.10.2016

Kukangendai was formed by the current three members in 2006. The music played in the form of three piece band (guitar, bass and drums) is created based on their idea of mixing edit, copy, repeat and error. Such twist and musical restraint in live performance make their music to be strict, but humorous. In recent years, the band has been trying to create an environment of unified rhythm in their live performance by mixing several different pieces.

Based in Tokyo, the trio has worked with such artists as ECD, Norimizu Ameya, Kakuya Ohashi and his dancers who are cutting-edge in their own genre. The band is currently in charge of music for Brecht’s play, “Fatzer,” performed by a theater company, CHITEN.

The band is also collaborating with Chiten, a fairly well-known theater japanese company. Japanese theatre Chiten presents the performance based on the unfinished play by Bertolt Brecht Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer on stage of Gogol-center, that is premiered in Russia. The play tells about the soldiers, who deserted during World War I. They run away from the military front and find shelter in German town Mülheim waiting for the revolution. The performance by the artistic director of the theatre Motoi Miura, where famous Japanese band kukangendai takes part, is created with the complicated interplay of music, voice and sounds.

Theatre Chiten strives to interpret various drama texts, creating lively emotional theatre, where words, light, sound, scenography and the human body merge into one holistic entity. One of the main Chiten’s characteristic features is its constant caring attitude to the dramatic text: this is a usual case when a director is also a playwright in the contemporary Japanese theatre, whereas in Chiten the director just stages the piece, trying to be loyal to the author’s style to the highest extent.