ORB:
ON THE MOVEMENTS
OF THE EARTH

Concept:

Orb portrays people who were utterly consumed by a desire to uncover the truth about the Earth. They put their lives at risk on that pursuit in 15th-century Europe, when the world was governed by the geocentric belief that God created the Earth as the center of the universe. At its heart, the work explores the significance of questioning the obvious, and the power of human conviction driven by the profound joy of discovery.

Avshalom Pollak turns the story into a unique theatrical performance while maintaing the themes of the original work at its core. Through Ella Rothschild's choreography, the inner transformations of the human heart, the shifting of thought, and the movement of the Earth itself are depicted through the movements of the performers. Umitaro Abe's original and otherworldly score expresses the denial of geocentrism as a sanctified, unquestionable doctrine. Costume design by Tamae Hirokawa draws from the 15th-century world of the original manga, weaving in a futuristic sensibility and Japanese aesthetic to create designs that embody each character's individual image.
The set design by Yukio Horio takes the Noh stage as its conceptual foundation, incorporating elements such as the hashigakari passageway and age-maku curtain. In Noh tradition, the stage is a place where the living and the dead meet, a perfect place to depict the story where the heliocentric truth is passed down, even after death. A single tree appearing on stage is inspired by the pine painted on the kagami-ita backboard in Noh, a symbol of the divine and the sacred. Rafal, who carries the heliocentric belief forward, moves the tree as a meataphor of the transformation of thought.