Rey Camoy – Tarinainanika Theatre Company / Bloomsbury Festival 2023

Japanese theatre company tarinainanika brings the story of artist Rey Camoy to Bloomsbury Festival audiences. Powerful, moving and at times disturbing, this is a tour de force of physical theatre.

Content warning: mentions of suicide and substance abuse.

Bloomsbury Festival 2023

I have been known on occasion to say that the most interesting, creative works are often discovered at festivals.  This year’s Bloomsbury Festival is no exception, with today’s twin posts on an artwork and a theatre performance only a taster of what’s on offer.  

In 2022 I attended the Bloomsbury Festival for the first time, and managed to see a few items on the agenda, including outdoor art exhibitions, an audio installation by Giuseppe Mario Urso (see today’s other post for the artist’s 2023 contribution), a storytelling event, and an exhibition at the Foundling Hospital.  This year I unfortunately did not plan as wisely, and made it only to the two events I will be discussing today.  As you read, please bear in mind this year’s festival theme of Grow (last year’s was Breathe).  I always find it interesting to measure the varied contributions to a festival against their overarching theme.

And if you, like me, do not always plan well, never fear! The Bloomsbury Festival support community engagement and arts projects across the year and will be back next year with more inspiring content. Check out their website (or subscribe to their handy Eventbrite notifications) to find out more.

Rey Camoy

The first item under discussion today is Rey Camoy, a performance by corporeal mime theatre company tarinainanika.  But who or what is Rey Camoy, and what is corporeal mime?

Let’s start with the first question.  Rey Camoy was a Japanese artist, although an artist painting in the Western rather than Japanese style.  Born in Kanazawa in 1928, he was the son of a journalist.  Having spent his childhood travelling, he continued to do so as an adult, living in Spain, France and further afield before ultimately settling in Kobe.  His art is little known but has something of a cult following.  Camoy painted a lot of marginalised characters: gamblers, clowns, drunkards and the like.  He also painted a lot of self portraits, and in later years nudes.  He’s perhaps best known for Myself, a 1982 work which brings together self portraiture with some of his typical characters. 

Artistically Camoy’s work lives at a very interesting intersection.  On the one hand the clowns and so on reminded me of someone like Bernard Buffet, while on the other hand the smoky, tortured quality of his figures brings to mind Goya’s Black Paintings.  Not a combination you see often.  Camoy sadly committed suicide in 1985 at the age of 57.

Tarinainanika: That Missing Something

Now for the second question.  Corporeal Mime is a technique devised by Étienne Decroux in the 20th Century and now in its third generation with tarinainanika founders Kentaro Suyama and Tania Coke. It aims to place drama inside the moving human body, centering it as a means of expression.  To the uninitiated, corporeal mime might best be described as a type of contemporary dance. Rey Camoy is certainly wordless, aside from a whispered refrain. But long-time Salterton Arts Review readers will also be accustomed to genre-defying performances under the banner of mime, as at the London International Mime Festival. Turns out it’s a very versatile medium.

It allows tarinainanika, whose name roughly translates as ‘the missing something’, to express to the Bloomsbury Theatre audience, without language barriers, the essence of Rey Camoy. His struggle to understand himself and depict the world he saw.  His inner torment and demons which ultimately led to his early death. Six performers achieve this feat in the roles of Rey Camoy, his underworld characters, and a figure who may be a lover or a muse. Rey Camoy is not a biography or a straightforward act of storytelling, but rather the experience of Camoy’s paintings coming to life. It is the interpretation of one visual art form (painting) through another (physical theatre). Going back to the Goya connection, this reminded me strongly of The Great He-Goat by Belgian company Mossoux-Bonté.

A Dark And Powerful Tale Of Longing

Tarinainanika’s mastery of corporeal mime is very powerful. The performance opens in what may be Camoy’s death scene, as he imbibes alcohol and pills. Each of the ‘spectres’ (for want of a better word) perform a solo based on one of Camoy’s paintings: a drunkard, an old crone, a clown, a disabled soldier. They appear to hound Camoy, drawing him out until his emotional well runs dry and his death is enacted before us. The performance is imbued with a tangible sense of loss and longing. Certain scenes are very powerful, particularly Camoy (Kantaro Suyama) and his lover/muse (Tania Coke) in a duet, using each other’s bodyweight to create movements which feels almostotherworldly.

The four other actors are very impressive for the way they perform many scenes absolutely in sync, yet bring their own characterisations to bear. I found myself particularly drawn to Yukiko Masui and her very animated and expressive style. This is a real tour de force of physical theatre and demanding on the actors: after seeing them act out such dark scenes with such commitment the curtain call wrenches us forcefully back into the present moment.

This exposure to new stories, companies and techniques is precisely why I value events like the Bloomsbury Festival so highly. The final performance of Rey Camoy at Bloomsbury festival is today (15 October) or you can look into details of their UK tour.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4.5/5

Rey Camoy on at Bloomsbury Festival until 15 October 2023 and on tour
Bloomsbury Festival 2023 continues until 22 October