Koharu Kisaragi (; February 19, 1956 – December 19, 2000) was a Japanese playwright, director, and essayist. The founder of the theater company NOISE, she worked as a playwright and director starting in the late 1970s, becoming, alongside Hideki Noda and Eri Watanabe, one of the leaders of the of Japanese .[1] She had a lasting influence on contemporary Japanese women's theater.[2]
Kisaragi was also a prolific essayist and appeared on television as a host and commentator. She served as the founding chair of the Asian Women's Theater Conference, as a member of UNESCO's Japanese National Commission, and as an instructor at Rikkyo University.
Masako Ito was born in Suginami, Tokyo, in 1956.[3] [4] [5] [6] She later became Masako Kajiya after her marriage, but she is best known by her pen name Koharu Kisaragi.
Kisaragi attended middle and high school at in Musashino. She also studied at Cowra High School in New South Wales, Australia, through an exchange program with her high school. Beginning in 1974, she studied philosophy at Tokyo Woman's Christian University.
While in college, Kisaragi became involved in theater, co-founding the University of Tokyo-affiliated intercollegiate theatrical troupe Kiki . In 1976, she published her first play, Ryusei Ingakan . She then wrote and directed the plays Romeo and Freesia at the Dining Table (; 1979), ANOTHER (1981), and Factory Story (1982). She worked in the same theater company as, Masumi Takikawa, and Shunya Yoshimi.[7]
In addition to her work in the theater, after graduating college, she spent a year in an office job, then taught at a juku.
After leaving the Kiki troupe in 1982, that fall she put on the show Photosynthesis Party with her husband, Kazuyuki Kajiya. In 1983, she founded her own theater company, NOISE, with whom she staged such productions as DOLL (1983) and MORAL (1984–1986). Kisaragi's plays frequently dealt with the realities of urban life and included meta-commentary on the act of creating theater.[8] These performances often combined traditional theater with other media, such as music and film.[9]
NOISE had around 30 members, led by Kisaragi as its primary playwright and director, and it was described in the media as an "urbanite theater group."[10] It disbanded in 1994, although Kisaragi continued to produce occasional performances with former members of the group, including her husband.
In 1988, she represented Japan at the first International Women Playwrights Conference in Buffalo, New York. Beginning in 1991, she held a series of theater workshops at the . In 1992, she was chosen as chair of the inaugural Asian Women's Theater Conference.[11]
In 2000, Kisaragi was hospitalized after losing consciousness in a classroom at Rikkyo University. She died less than two weeks later, of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, at age 44. She left her husband and one daughter, as well as a vast but incomplete body of work.
She had been scheduled to chair the following year's Asian Women's Theater Conference, which Rio Kishida did in her place.