Due to the decrease and ageing in population, and the economic decline, rural areas are facing a critical situation today. Now is the time for ordinary people living a steady life to think carefully and make conscious and proactive choices about how the future should be. Otherwise, our future, and the future of the coming generations, will be lost.
Now, more than ever, rural areas need the stimulus of encounters and the thoughts inspired by the stimulus. The situation caused by COVID-19 further damaged the various foundations of life. It forced us to pause. It gave us time to think and to ponder. It allowed many of us to question what we had taken for granted: about people, about society, about living, and about the meaning of our work. We must take the stagnation and confusion caused by COVID-19 as an opportunity to change ourselves.
This year’s BIRD Theatre Festival will combine theatre and other fields to create a new space of communication for thinking about the future of society and the future of life in the rural areas from different perspectives through weekly themed lectures, talks, workshops, and theatre productions.
(BIRD Theatre Company TOTTORI Artistic Director NAKASHIMA Makoto)
