Akira Takayama

Akira Takayama is a Japanese theatre maker and director. He founded the interdisciplinary theatre collective Port B in Tokyo in 2002, with which he continues to develop internationally recognized projects. His works, which often activate urban space as a site of participation and reflection, are regularly featured at major festivals such as Festival/Tokyo, Wiener Festwochen, Kunstenfestivaldesarts and other major international art exhibitions. With projects like Compartment City, The Referendum Project and McDonald’s Radio University, Takayama explores the societal possibilities of a radically expanded concept of theatre.

As part of the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, he was invited to develop an artistic project in urban space that addresses a broad audience and engages with both the festival’s past and the city of Berlin. In response, Takayama presents a project on the Berlin Ringbahn that brings unrealized projects and proposals conceived in Berlin — including those related to the Berliner Festspiele — into the present, projecting them toward speculative futures.