⌜Greetings from the Edge of the Earth I⌟ is a representative work of SCOT (Suzuki Company of Toga), led by Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki. As one of SCOT’s major repertory pieces, it is performed annually at the SCOT Summer Festival. The work explores the boundaries between human existence and civilization, as well as the condition of human beings in extreme situations.
Rather than following a single linear narrative, the piece adopts a collage structure in which diverse texts, images, and physical states are juxtaposed. The performers, grounded in highly controlled bodies and a strong lower-body-centered energy, generate tension on stage through the repetition of stillness and explosive movement. Through this approach, the human being is presented not as a narrative character, but as a state of existence—an embodied phenomenon.
The images that appear throughout the work evoke a world shaped by war, isolation, and collapse. Through the notion of the “edge of the world,” the piece calls attention to the fundamental conditions in which human beings exist. Language is minimized or used fragmentarily, while the performer’s body, breath, and gaze function as the primary means of expression.
In particular, the presence of the kuruma isu (wheelchair) serves as a significant image that reveals both the limitation of movement and the incompleteness of the body, while simultaneously symbolizing the structural conditions imposed upon human existence. Through this, the work conveys the tension between the inability to move and the necessity to exist, generating sensory and philosophical questions for the audience.
Within the Suzuki Method, energy grounded in the feet and the stability of the lower body form the fundamental basis of the actor’s presence. The condition of the wheelchair, however, fundamentally blocks this foundation. Rather than being treated as a limitation, this absence was approached as a point from which a new form of tension could emerge.
Under conditions of restricted movement, relationships with space were constructed through breath, gaze, subtle muscular tremors, and minimal changes in the upper body. Through this process, the paradoxical state of “movement without movement” emerged, marking a critical shift in reconsidering conventional, body-centered approaches to acting.
Space began to be perceived not as something to be traversed, but as a relational field formed between actor and audience. Energy originating from the tanden(the Body’s Energetic Center) expanded through the body, extending into invisible lines that connected with the audience. In this framework, time was experienced not through physical action, but through the flow of breath and voice. At the moment when space and time converged, this condition was recognized as a dimension of “spirit (靈).”
Through this work, the actor’s body revealed itself not as a tool for expressing personal identity, but as a medium capable of manifesting something invisible. Within the constrained condition of the wheelchair, the density of presence intensified, leading toward further exploration of the “neutral body” and “non-human energy.”
Director
Suzuki Tadashi
Parent
竹森陽一
Child
加藤雅治
Monks
植田大介
平野雄一郎
長田大史
飯塚佑樹
山田憲人
Bride
進真理恵
Women of the Red-and-White Curtain
齋藤真紀
鬼頭理沙
進真理恵
小川敦子
Brenna O’Brien
Antonina Valderrama
Men in Wheelchairs
이 성 원
村上厚二
松本一歩
高岡諒一
Nicolás Queraltó
Jonathan Taikina Taylor
주 우 진
Merlijn De Meyer Engelbeen
Fireworks Performers
前田徹
高橋保男
高橋光久
須藤優
村松秀隆
山路和樹
植木陽祐
根岸佑佳
榊本昌弘
村井智紀
田中宏幸
河合乃彩