Twenty-Five Years of Creative Exchange

Over twenty-five years ago, Caroline Dunphy first travelled to Japan with Frank Theatre to train and perform at Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre (SPAC) and in Toga with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), under the artistic direction of renowned director Tadashi Suzuki.

It was the beginning of an enduring artistic connection with Japan that has profoundly influenced her work and practice.

This September, Caroline was back in Japan for the Suzuki Company of Toga’s 51st Summer Festival, reconnecting with familiar faces, meeting new artists and continuing that long history of creative exchange.

That connection has grown into a much broader relationship between Belloo and Japan. Over the past decade, Belloo has returned again and again to train, research, develop and make work with Japanese artists and companies. Those relationships have resulted in five new works, countless hours in rehearsal rooms and ongoing creative collaborations with artists and companies such as Noriaki Okubo, IDIOT SAVANT theater company and New Zealand’s Good Company Arts.

Now, that history is feeding into Belloo’s newest international collaboration, or fish, bringing together an extraordinary creative team from Australia and Japan.

For Belloo, international exchange isn’t about a single project or visit. It’s about what becomes possible when relationships between artists are allowed to deepen over time.

Image: Caroline Dunphy with actors Jamaluddin Latif (centre) and Wahyu Kurnia (right) at Toga Festival.