KUUKI (PLN/JPN) / Naks Festival

空気 (Kuuki) is the Japanese word for air. It consists of kanji signs defining sky, atmosphere and energy at the same time. For artists working on this production Kuuki / Air is primarily a movement.

Dynamically, lightly, airy, elusively – Kuuki is a quest for energy. Can the wind be touched? How does the air smell? How does the breath sound? Each of us – the youngest and the older one – experiences it on a daily basis, yet the air constantly enraptures us with it’s elusiveness, under consciousness, enchants with the promise of going up, attracts the possibility of flight, spinning.

Dancers and instrumentalists take viewers for a journey to search for materiality together, in what is so fleeting. They invite the air to be touched, felt, listened... In this delicate and safe space, artists, children and adults look for mutual experiences and inspire each other. Movement, sound and image are filled with air.

KUUKI is a Japanese-Polish production, for which JIENKYO (Japanese Theater Union for Children and Youth) invited the creative duet Barbara Małecka / Alicja Morawska-Rubczak, which for almost ten years have been dealing with the development of the theater for the youngest in Poland and the promotion of home theater for children abroad, and as a stage designer and director together they create performances dedicated to children under the age of three. They were joined by an outstanding Japanese accordionist Kanako Kato.

Produced by Japan Union of Theatre Companies for Children and Young People (Tokio /JP)

Director: Alicja Morawska-Rubczak

Scenography and costume: Barbara Małecka

Music: Kanako Kato, performed by: Kanako Kato/Jakub Drzastwa

Cast: Maho Harada / Magda Wolnicka

Noriko Matshuda / Monika Kiwak

Producer: Akira Ota / JIENKYO