Article in the October 2000 issue of the monthly magazine Uwasa no
Shinso
Morio Emori, theater critic

Nawa (Ropes), in which the actors' physicality generates the space on
the stage

Nawa was written and produced by Shingo Kimura, and performed by
Store House Company

The company performs works which are free from dramatic form and
based on the actors' physicality. They build the space on the stage
through the continuous "movement" of the actors' bodies and the
movable stage setting.

In the company's two previous works, Boxes and Wanderers, the actors
were confronted with wooden boxes. In this work they are confronted
with a cluster of thick and thin, long and short ropes.

At first the ropes were hanging from the ceiling, and the actors walked
and ran between them in various directions. After looking out through
the ropes, they finally pulled them down and took them apart; then
they performed various action with them such as tying them to walls,
winding them around their faces, and fighting one another with them.

The confrontation between the actors and the ropes was shocking
because the primitive and fetishistic power of the ropes was revealed.
A rope can be a tool to kill people or to help them. This
multifunctionality of ropes gives to the people who use them an
ambiguous reality.

This was a very powerful performance, the fast pace and
straightforwardness of which clearly conveyed the relationship
between ropes and people.