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Japanese dance company Moonlight Mobile Theater
has come up with a novel way of bringing people back to their
avant-garde performances while maintaining social distancing.
Audience members sit on stools in separated cubicles surrounding
the stage, each with its own door and letter-drop slots through
which they can watch the dancers.
"We intentionally created small holes and slots resembling
mailbox slots," said Nobuyoshi Asai, the theatre's artistic
director and choreographer, explaining how limiting the scope of
viewing allows the audience to become more absorbed in the
performance.
The theatre company began this peephole viewing in December
after cancelling most of its shows last year because of the
pandemic. Since December, all 12 of the peephole performances
have sold out.
Though this response has been encouraging, only 30 people are
allowed in the audience at each show. This does not cover the
cost of the performance, including additional safety measures
such as disinfecting the venue. Government subsidies barely help
the company make ends meet.
While acknowledging the difficulties, Asai is steadfast in the
advantages of this idea.
"If we don't do it, artists will lose opportunities to dance and
act," he said. "We want to propose this as a model to bring
audiences back to theatres."
(Reporting by Hideto Sakai and Akiko Okamoto; Writing by
Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Karishma Singh and Gerry Doyle)
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