"Portrait of a House"

Valeska Gert Visiting Toshiki Okada Image Credit: Kikuko Usuyama - Film presentation to conclude the Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship of Toshiki Okada at Freie Universität Berlin No 031/2021 from Feb 19, 2021 The multi-award-winning Japanese writer, playwright, director, and holder of the Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship, Toshiki Okada, has adapted and conscientiously revised his piece The Vacuum Cleaner as a film project together with students from the Institute of Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. The group explored the choreographic power of imagination during the 2020/2021 winter semester. The resulting film, Portrait of a House , can be viewed on the Akademie der Künste Berlin website. The Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship is supported by Freie Universität in collaboration with the Akademie der Künste and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Toshiki Okada was born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1973. He formed the theater company chelfitsch in 1997, which has gone on to stage productions of Okada's award-winning and critically acclaimed plays. The imagination takes center stage in Okada's work: "I see imagination on stage as a kind of choreographer.