Ninagawa Yukio is one of a number of Japanese artists, including the film-maker Kurosawa Akira, the musician Sakamoto Ryuichi and the animator Miyazaki Hayao, who have established themselves on the international stage. Ninagawa has made a reputation for himself principally for his Japanese language productions of Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies. More recently he has directed films such as 'Snakes and Ear Rings' by the young Akutagawa Prize winning novelist, novelist Kanehara Hitomi.
Living in Osaka in the late 1990s, I was lucky to see a production of Medea, by Ninagawa Yukio. On this occasion, Medea was played by Taira Mikijiro... It was a highly stylised and striking all male production, both in terms of the visual elements and the music. The highlight was the scene where Medea pulls out a length of red ribbon from her mouth. The stage was full of movement; Medea's costume was otherworldy and the ribbon looked like she was pulling her entrails out of her own mouth. Mae Smethurst, who has written extensively on the 1993 Tokyo production featuring Tokusaburo Arashi, warns that whilst the use of the red ribbon in traditional Kabuki and Bunraku theatre can signify blood, it can also be used to express love... Ninagawa's ability to find intense dramatic pressure points through this kind of imagery, choreography, the human voice and through the use of contemporary music lift these productions to great heights. And the fact that these productions are in Japanese, doesn't stop a non-Japanese speaking audience from being able to engage with them. Ninagawa first directed Medea in the late 1970s and toured this production through Europe, including Athens, in the 1980s.
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