Public Performance of the Portuguese Play by TUFS` Students Performed in Ota city, Gunma prefecture Dec 23

January 12, 2016

On the 23rd of December 2015 (Wednesday), the second year students from the School of Language and Culture Studies and the School of International and Area Studies held a public performance of the Portuguese play “Orpheus” (Vinicius de Moraes) which was performed at this year’s TUFS culture festival at the Culture Hall Topia in Yabutsuka town, Ota city, Gunma prefecture (Co-organized by TUFS and the Brazilian Consulate General and sponsored by the Federal Savings Bank of Brazil). On the day the vice consul Louisa Horta and Mr. Marusero Sudo from the Brazilian Consulate attended.

Ota city and the neighboring town of Oizumi in the same prefecture is a region with a high number of Brazilian residents. Not only Japanese spectators but many Brazilians came to see the tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the setting of Rio de Janeiro`s carnival.
The members of the Brazilian Research Society also did a special stage performance, bringing the event to a climax with a live samba performance.

Practicing for a further month after the TUFS Cultural festival had ended, they displayed an even higher standard of acting. After the performance they received positive thoughts and words of encouragement from both Japanese and Brazilian spectators so the students held a strong sense of fulfilment.

Comments from the Students

Through the practice for the TUFS Cultural Festival, of course we were able to utilize everything we had learnt up until now but also were able to learn new cultural aspects and language expressions. Being able to exchange cultures with the Brazilian spectators that kindly came to watch our performance became a very valuable experience.
(School of Language and Culture Studies, Portuguese, 2nd year KUDO Yumi)

It was very difficult understanding, absorbing and then expressing the completely different lifestyle environment and disposition of Brazilian character Orpheus, though it became a very valuable experience.
(School of International and Area Studies, Regions of Latin America, 2nd year TACHI Yuto role of Orpheus)

At this year’s TUFS Cultural Festival we not only spoke in Portuguese, we also got to experience the culture of Rio de Janeiro. It was a large step forward in terms of learning Portuguese.
(School of International and Area Studies, Regions of West Africa and Europe, 2nd year TAKAHASHI Yuki role of Luinyo)