The Journey So Far:TERASIA in Thailand, Japan, and Myanmar

The team of artists in Thailand was formed in summer 2020 through the initiative of Narumol (Kop) Thammapruksa, a theatre artist with deep ties to Japan. She gathered artists based in Chiang Mai, the central city of northern Thailand, and together they embarked on their TERASIA journey.

The artists boldly deconstructed the original version of Tera performed in Tokyo and created a new production of their own, titled TERA เถระ (TERA Tera). New elements relating to views on life and death were incorporated, such as the philosophy and scripture of Thai Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism; the traditional culture and music of Northern Thailand; as well as mythology, philosophy, meditation, Butoh dance, and children’s literature. The performance was held at the Pha Lat temple in the famous Doi Suthep National Park in Chiang Mai. Led by the performers, the audience stepped into the temple’s precincts nestled in the mountains, walking from outside the gate toward the main building.

Shigeru Okamoto, a painter, is asked by a monk to make a replica of a giant mandala. As he becomes engrossed in the painting process, he is gradually drawn into the world of the mandala. An elderly housekeeper named Kae Yamada watches over him while taking care of a calico cat she brought home.

Inspired by The Cat Who Went to Heaven (1930), a children’s novel by Elizabeth Coatsworth, the stories of various characters unfold across space and time from early postwar Japan, where Shigeru and Kae live, to Thailand, India, and Tibet. While some elements of Tera in Japan are left intact—such as the question-and-answer session, in which the musician poses 108 questions to the audience, and Buddhist sutra recitations by the monk of the temple—the work has been wholly re-envisioned to reflect vividly the beliefs and views on life and death held by the Thai people.

As part of the TERASIA project, the team of artists in Japan recreated Tera, which premiered in 2018 at the Jōdo School temple Saihō-ji in Tokyo, into a new piece titled TERA in Kyoto. It was performed in March 2021 at the Rinzai School temple Kōshō-ji in Kyoto. Traveling across two regions and two schools of Buddhism over three years, this production is a journey to explore our beliefs and spirituality as it exists in contemporary Japan, from the Pure Land to Hell.

The protagonist, Mitsuko Kyōgoku, is a daughter of the temple. In the Nirvana Hall, where the Ksitigarbha (“Jizo-bosatsu” in Japanese) is enshrined, she spends her days telling a long, long poem. One day, she ends up journeying through Hell by accident. Starting from Daffodils and Wooden Fish: A Verse Drama (1957) by Jūrō Miyoshi, the play interweaves various Japanese literary works—including the poem “Monks” (1958) by Minoru Yoshioka, the novel Kangaroo Notebook (1991) by Kōbō Abe, and the poem “Monogatari no akuru hi” (“The Day After the Story”) (1961) by Taeko Tomioka—together with sacred texts passed down at the performance venue, Rinzai School Kōshō-ji, and YouTube sermons by the temple. The story unfolds through this kaleidoscopic imagery in a “spiritual spectacle.”

In May 2022, we held an exhibition titled “Masking/Unmasking Death,” featuring the work of Kamizu, a TERASIA member and artist from Myanmar, at the Chinretsukan Gallery in the University Art Museum at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Since the coup d’état broke out in February 2021, Kamizu has been creating paper masks modeled on the faces of those who lost their lives in the coup and the subsequent military violence in Myanmar. The exhibition was the world premiere of 100 masks and information about their models. The artwork was received with an enthusiastic response as more than 2,000 visitors came over 10 days.
The exhibition’s 3D archive, powered by Matterport, is displayed on the Tokyo Geidai Digital Twin website.

Archive production cooperation: Tokyo Geidai Art DX