Japan Society will present the world premiere of The Seven Bridges(Hashi-zukushi), a vibrant new work for all ages from the Tokyo-based dance company CHAiroiPLIN with choreography by company founder Takuro Suzuki, based on a lesser-known short story by Yukio Mishima of the same title. The Seven Bridges (Hashi-zukushi) will have two performances only, taking place Saturday, November 15 and Sunday, November 16 at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street) as part of the continuing Fall 2025 Yukio Mishima Centennial Series: Emergences. This program is presented by Japan Society as part of Carnegie Hall’s Spotlight on Japan. Recommended for ages 7+. Performance runs approximately 55 minutes.
CHAiroiPLIN (a tongue-in-cheek amalgamation of Charlie Chaplin’s name and the Japanese word chairoi, referring to a color) is acclaimed for converting great authors’ novels into disarmingly enchanting-yet-satirical performances, appropriate for all ages, told almost entirely through movement. In this work, founder and choreographer Takuro Suzuki and company take on Yukio Mishima’s suspenseful and humorous short story in this world premiere performance. Following a fanciful superstition that crossing seven bridges without conversing with anyone on a full moon night will make their wishes come true, four women occupying different positions of wealth and societal status set out on a journey under the watchful gaze of the Moon. As distractions and mishaps befall the women, their race to the end of the seventh bridge becomes increasingly fraught – who, if anyone, will be able to make it to the end, and for what kind of wish? With spirited, arresting and slapstick movement set to an impressive range of high energy music encompassing Daft Punk, Balkan brass band Fanfare Ciocărlia, eccentric original songs performed live, and more, choreographer Takuro Suzuki and CHAiroiPLIN infuse unbridled charm into Mishima’s compact reflection on ritual and desire. With this world premiere of The Seven Bridges (Hashi-zukushi), CHAiroiPLIN makes its North American company performance debut.
Yukio Mishima’s short story The Seven Bridges (Hashi-zukushi) was originally published in Japan in 1956. Two years later, Mishima himself developed this story into a dance drama. While CHAiroiPLIN’s entirely original work reflects their own signature gleefully absurdist style, the company has deliberately adapted a narrative which Mishima himself envisioned as uniquely appropriate for the dance stage.
CHAiroiPLIN is a Tokyo-based dance company founded by the dancer/choreographer Takuro Suzuki. Made up of a combination of theater performers and dancers, the company incorporates an expressive variety of forms fusing dance, dialogue, singing, onomatopoeia and other creative elements. They aim to create highly entertaining and narrative-driven dance performances that can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages. Since its establishment in 2007, CHAiroiPLIN has received numerous awards for its ongoing “Dancing Literature” series, which adapts modern and classical Japanese literature and plays ranging from novels to manga, rakugo (traditional comedic storytelling) and folktales, utilizing idiosyncratic and stylized body movements and expert choreography. Some notable productions include Fantasy Stone (based on Shigeru Mizuki’s manga), which was awarded the Audience Prize in the 1stSengawa Drama Contest; Market, a winner of the NEXTREAM21 Dance Festival All Genre Dance Contest; and Friends (based on an absurdist play by the acclaimed Japanese dramatist Kobo Abe), a winner of the Grand Prize at the Young Directors Competition. CHAiroiPLIN has toured regularly throughout Japan and East Asia.
Takuro Suzuki (Choreographer, Director, Dancer) was born in Niigata Prefecture in 1985. He studied theater, pantomime and dance at Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, led by world-renowned Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa. After graduation, he continued to present public performances that spotlight new possibilities of combining dance and theater. He aims to create works incorporating a variety of dance, dialogues, singing, and Japanese onomatopoeia that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Suzuki founded the dance company CHAiroiPLIN in 2007 and has also a primary member of the dance company CONDORS since 2011. He choreographs and has appeared in NHK’s hugely popular weekly children’s program Miitsuketa! (Found it!) and also created choreography for the television programs Touken Ranbu and Bungo Stray Dogs. He has also choreographed and danced in works for leading theaters throughout Japan, including Nissay Theater and Hakataza Theater among many others. In addition to performing in well-known competitions and festivals like White Song Battle and the FNS Music Festival, he has also performed with Philippe Decouflé and other leading international choreographers. In 2019, he received the New Artist Award from the Agency for Cultural Affairs Arts Festival, the Yokohama Dance Collection EX Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Toyota Choreography Award. He has received numerous other awards, including the 46th Dance Critics Association New Artist Award, the 9th Japan Dance Forum Award, the Grand Prize in the 2013 Young Director Competition, the Suginami Theater Festival Excellence Award and first place in the 3rd Setagaya Arts Award – “Soaring” Performing Arts Category. He is a part-time lecturer at Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music and was a senior fellow of the Saison Foundation through 2023. He was selected as the 2015 Ambassador of Cultural Exchange in East Asia. In 2024, he received the New Artist Award in the Dance Division from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.
Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970), born Kimitake Hiraoka, was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, ultra-nationalist and leader of an attempted coup d’état which culminated in his suicide. Mishima is considered one of the most important postwar stylists of the Japanese language. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times in the 1960s. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask, Life for Sale, and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea as well as the plays My Friend Hitler, The Lady Aoi and Madame de Sade.
AloJapan.com