“Antigone” at Avignon Theatre Festival 2017

Stage design for "Antigone" was performed is the courtyard of the Palais of Pope.
Space surrounded by castle walls of 30 meters.

Antigone is floating over the center of the stage.
The shadow is projected on the wall.
The whole stage is filled with water.
The corlus and the performer are drifting over the the water.

Shadow is not just image.
It was created by actor’s own body.
A small actor’s shadow dominates on the wall of 30 ms high.
It is easy to see for the audience behind.
Thus, the problem of the scale of space is solved.


The water surface means the boundary that connects our living world and the world after death,
expressing the "place where the soul returns to".

To integrate shadow and water.
I decided　to place some big stones on the water like a rock garden in a Japanese temple.
By these rock garden
I explored a concept connecting the shadow and the water.

The water around the stone is “the world of souls”.
The actors drifting on the surface of the water means "innocent souls".

And the character of this story stands upon the stone.
The light casts the characters and projects shadows on the wall.
The story advances with that shadow.
The shadow reflected on the wall expresses the “real world”.
The soul who finished the role of the character returns from the stone to the the water.
This expresses Buddhist thought of “Rebirth".