This work had a great reception last year! A poet performs and tells the story of vanishing villages with live music. This year, it's a special edition for Tottori.

Artist/Company
Tom Pow & The Galloway Agreement [From Scotland, UK]
Date
Saturday, 21 September, 18:30-
Sunday, 22 September, 18:30-
*There will be a talkback after each performance.
Running Time
70 minutes
Venue
BIRD Theatre [Theatre]
Price
Adults: 2,800 yen*
under 18: 500 yen
Preschool-aged children: Free
*Including one drink voucher for use at the Café
Language
Performed in English with Japanese subtitles
Mobile subtitles
Mobile devices for Japanese or English subtitles available
About the programme開く

The Village and The Road, performed and received with great acclaim at last year's BIRD Theatre Festival, will return. Beautiful words and stories collected from vanishing European villages were delivered in poems, and a musical ensemble including ancient European instruments brought out truly delicate melodies, making every audience reflect on their own past times. Everyone felt very tender and emotional. This time, the piece will be performed in a special edition, including poems developed from the stories collected in Tottori. Please enjoy this beautiful world overflowing with nostalgia.

The poem and music featured in "Village and Road 2024".
During his stay in Tottori last year, the poet Tom visited depopulated villages and had the opportunity to hear stories from the local residents. These new creations are based on those narratives.
Additionally, the stories he gathered have been transcribed into poems, along with others, and compiled into a poetry collection.
The collection is titled "Playing Ghosts: Poems from the Japanese Countryside", and it is scheduled to be published by Giovanni Books on 13 September, 2024.

Cast / Staff開く

Original script: Tom Pow

Music: The Galloway Agreement

Direction: Matthew Zajac

Performance: Tom Pow and
The Galloway Agreement [ Wendy Stewart (harp, vocals), Ruth Morris (nyckelharpa), Gavin Marwick (fiddle), Stuart Macpherson (double bass) ]

Original live score: The Galloway Agreement

Original lighting design and photo credits: Andrew Wilson

Lighting technician: Alberto Santos Bellido

Sound Design: Stuart Macpherson

Digital Assets: Emma Dove

Message from the artist開く

I can’t remember where I heard the saying that ‘unexpected invitations to travel are gifts from the gods’, but last year The Galloway Agreement and I received such an invitation. Our visit to Bird Theatre enriched our lives, artistically and personally.

It is an enormous privilege that we have been invited back and that our funders have supported us.

We are grateful that Bird Theatre did not ask for the same show again, but for one that reflected our Japanese experiences, both musically and in relation to the guided fieldwork I did.

For this show I have written a whole new scene and also, where appropriate, made reference to Japanese culture in words and in action. The play also makes use of audience reactions from last year.

In addition to that I have written a book of poems, Ghosts at Play, Poems of Rural Japan.The poems have been translated by Nao Miyauchi and will be available in September.

Tom Pow

The Village & The Road addresses a global phenomenon: rural depopulation. It asks fundamental questions about the state of humanity’s relationship to the earth we all walk on.

We humans have succeeded in creating a world for ourselves which is increasingly detached from the natural world. This is an urbanised, corporate world where we are surrounded by and dependent on human-made materials and processes, where the material world is increasingly mediated through our computer screens, where we can avoid direct interaction with other human beings for much of our time if we choose to.

The Village & The Road asks questions about what we are losing by succumbing to this detached way of living and by the loss of our connection to the land, a connection which was intrinsic to all of human history up to the industrial revolution.

Working with Tom Pow and the four musicians of The Galloway Agreement to develop The Village & The Road has been a unique experience, creating a remarkable piece of poetic music theatre. It is a great privilege to present our work to audiences in Japan and to share the production’s contention that rural depopulation may present an existential threat to our very survival.

Matthew Zajac

Musician's profile開く

The Galloway Agreement

is a collaboration featuring four renowned traditional musicians; Wendy Stewart (harp, vocals), Ruth Morris (alto and tenor nyckelharpa), Gavin Marwick (fiddle), and Stuart Macpherson (double bass).

These world class musicians are all based in Dumfries and Galloway. They originally came together as invited artists to record on Wendy's album, Folds in the Field. They enjoyed playing together so much that they decided to form this quartet, with quite a different instrumental line-up and choice of material from a more usual string quartet!

Their repertoire is a mixture of original compositions and favourite tunes and songs from Scotland and other European traditions.

Artist's profile開く

Tom Pow

He received a Creative Scotland Award to respond in poetry and prose to the phenomenon of dying villages in Europe. Travels to Northern Spain, Central France, Southern Italy, Eastern Germany, Bulgaria, Western Poland and Russia, and Northern Scotland, resulted in a rich archive of recordings, photographs, and writings, including In Another World – Among Europe's Dying Villages (Polygon, 2012).

Director's profile開く

Matthew Zajac

He grew up in Inverness and studied drama at Bristol University. He has worked as an actor for 40 years. Matthew has worked with many theatres including Citizens Theatre Glasgow, Manchester Royal Exchange, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, and Lyric Hammersmith. He has also worked with several Swedish companies. In 2009, he was named Best Actor in the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland for his performance in his play The Tailor of Inverness. The play has won several other awards and has played around the world. A documentary film, Circling A Fox – the Story of The Tailor of Inverness, directed by Brian Ross, was broadcast by the BBC in 2021 & ‘22. Other plays include The Sky Is Safe (Dogstar 2017) and an adaptation of James Robertson’s novel The Testament of Gideon Mack, due for production by Dogstar in 2025. He has been Artistic Director of Dogstar Theatre Company since 2004.

Host/Grant開く

Creative Scotland

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation

British Council