Miyamoto Amon

Miyamoto Amon is a famous director and choreographer in Japan. He had stayed abroad in London and New York to study drama for 2 years. In 1987, after he came back, he made his debut as a director with his original musical, "I Got Merman". He was awarded "the prize for Art Festival by the Agency for Cultural Affairs" for this work the next year.

He takes an active part as a director of musicals, straight plays, operas and the like at present. For example, his first directed movie "Beat" was released in the fall, 1998. The main cast includes "Uchida Yuki" and "Maki Kroudo (sometimes Claude)", and the setting of this story is Okinawa. Because he likes Okinawa very much, he made up his mind to immigrate to Okinawa.

Miyamoto was born and grew up in Tokyo. His first impressions are of fashionable and urban manners (light images), but he has had very heavy experiences in the past. When he was in high school, he was a student that refused to go to school, because he could not communicate with people around him. He did not know how to connect with people. He could not go out of his room. He stayed in his dark room all day. He refused to go to school for a year. But this experience was very important for him. During this time, he enjoyed imagining many things. He had his own world. He imagined many new original stories.

He wanted to talk about his imagination to someone. This was a time of change. He decided to go back to school and belonged to drama club. He started his new life. He began communicating with people through plays.

Therefore, he decided to become producer. And as a first step, he aimed at becoming a dancer, because first-class musical producers on Broadway are also first-class dance choreographers.

He passed the audition for the musical "Seesaw" as a dancer. This was the starting point of his professional career, and after that he would play and produce many musical.

He decided to live in Okinawa. From 3 years ago, he had traveled around Japan. He had taken a break. When he visited there, he discovered the charm there. The passage of time, warm-hearted people, nature and so on. He felt excited about the simple life. At the same time, he took on the movie that he could make at will. He selected Okinawa under occupation of U.S.A. for the setting for his movie.

He said "I have made a play after being affected by a movie, and I have thought I wanted to take part in the movie. And I wanted to express my original character if I do. That is Okinawa. Although most people can not strike each other in this age, people in Okinawa can. And I wanted to express this."

He is multi-entertainer. He will continue to produce, play and express himself. We should expect a lot from him.

References: http://www.puerta-ds.com/

This article compliments of Michael Shawback's Internet class at Ryukoku University, Kyoto

Reported by: Mayumi Isoda
Data verified by: Ikuhito Okamura
Date of Report: October 1998

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