(Not "The Big Issue")
Yomiuri: Sokerissa!---Dancing with the homeless
With an upcoming event in Tokyo, dancer-choreographer Yuki Aoki hopes to present contemporary dance that is not too abstract but may be enjoyed by everyone. More importantly, he wants to make the show an opportunity to meet homeless people by making them his dancers..."I got the urge to present a show with homeless people when I saw them lying behind street dancers, for example, without showing even a hint of interest in the performance. Seeing that gave me a real sense of the great divide that lies between them and us. I wondered what would happen if I brought them over to 'our side'"...Having discussed his project with The Big Issue Japan, the Japanese edition of The Big Issue, Britain's magazine aimed at helping the homeless, Aoki decided to recruit dancers from among its homeless vendors early last year...Yasuhiro Tominaga, one of the six, said, "I just thought it would be a fun to dance in a program like that." Tominaga sells The Big Issue near JR Mitaka Station and sleeps in a bicycle parking lot. "What do I feel now? Well, I'm pleased to hear from my Big Issue customers that they already bought tickets to the program," Tominaga said...In Sokerissa!, there will also be mock classroom scenes in which an American man teaches the homeless men English and iaido swordsmanship...more...
