Rina TANAKA (rinat@meiji.ac.jp) is Assistant Professor at the School of Global Japanese Studies in Meiji University, lecturer at Keio University, Kanagawa University, and Saitama University. She was a visiting fellow at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. Her research interests include the sociocultural history of contemporary musical theatre in/between German-speaking countries and Asia. In 2019, she was awarded the Helsinki Prize of the International Federation for Theatre Research. She is also working as a translator and critic. At TPAM 2021, she moderated a panel about the transnational TERASIA project with Maho Watanabe and Narumol (Kop) Thammapruksa.
Born in Saitama in 1992, Maho Watanabe is a translator and dramaturge who works in and around the realms of art, media, and humanitarian work. Since her first theater involvement during a year abroad in Palestine as an Arabic Studies student, she has participated in numerous international collaboration projects, festivals, and workshops. Her translation of “Lilac Duhaa (Death in the Era of IS)” by Palestinian playwright Ghannam Ghannam won the 2019 Odashima Yushi Award for Drama Translation. In May 2020, she joined artists from Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Japan, to launch “TERASIA: Theatre for Traveling in the Age of Isolation.”