Yoko Nagae Ceschina, 82

Yoko Nagae Ceschina, Countess and Fairy Godmother to the Arts, Dies at 82
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, January 18, 2015

With Ubuntu, Carnegie Hall honors South African culture

Carnegie Hall

presents

UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa

a citywide festival exploring South African arts and culture

October 10-November 5

dozens of events at Carnegie Hall 

and partner venues across New York City

music, film, visual arts, and more

featuring trumpeter, vocalist, and composer Hugh Masekela; vocalist Vusi Mahlasela; jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim; vocalist Angélique Kidjo; vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo; visual artist William Kentridge; and many others

For information on Carnegie Hall's UBUNTU Music and Arts of South Africa festival, click here.

Thomas Mapfumo to play Carnegie Hall in October

Carnegie Hall

in partnership with  
World Music Institute

presents 

Thomas Mapfumo

Saturday, October 20 (10pm)

Thomas Mapfumo

Known as "The Lion of Zimbabwe," Thomas Mapfumo has popularized the music of his native country throughout the world with his revolutionary, spiritually charged chimurenga (Shona for "struggle") music. Introducing the electric guitar and bass while maintaining the core rhythms and melodies of the traditional mbira, his songs became veritable anthems for the independence movement of his country in the 1970s, and later a litany of criticism of the Mugabe government. Mapfumo, now living in exile in the US, has been hailed as a musical visionary and one of Africa's greatest bandleaders. He performs with his group, The Blacks Unlimited.

Part of Carnegie Hall's World Views series in Zankel Hall

For information and tickets, click here.

Erwin Frankel, 76

Erwin Frankel Dies at 76; Brought World Music to U.S.
by Paul Vitello, The New York Times, March 1, 2012

Lila Downs set for Carnegie Hall

CAMI Music 
in association with
World Music Institute and The Latin Recording Academy
present

Lila Downs

Tuesday, November 15, 8pm

For over a decade, Lila Downs has toured the world, performing her dramatic reinvention of traditional Mexican music and original compositions fused with blues, jazz, soul and African roots.  Some would classify Lila as a Mexican artist, but there is no real way to categorize her music except to say that it is a distinctive and exciting blend of international sounds.  With her soaring voice, she takes her audiences on a musical journey that is always fascinating, simultaneously edgy and strong, yet sumptuous and graceful.
 
Tickets

Carnegie Hall
57th Street and 7th Avenue, Manhattan
(directions and parking)

Scorched earth

You arrive at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and, if there’s a crowd, wait in a line that snakes through the lobby before you’re ushered into an elevator, twelve people at a time. When you reach the 6th floor, you can leave your coat on a rack before entering a very different kind of space created and inhabited by the Japanese-born dance/installation artists Eiko and Koma for the New York premiere of Naked: A Living Installation.

Step past a canvas wall decorated in black feathers and sand adhered to the fabric by sweet rice paste. Like a birder’s observation blind, it has some peep holes you can use to view the scene inside, but you will also find two entrances.

Your first impression on seeing the two nude performers reclining on a mound of scorched straw, feathers and sand, surrounded by a moat of brown earth might be that they look like chicks in a nest, not only pitiably vulnerable but actually dead with flesh resembling stone mounds or dried fish. Just a few feet away, audience observers stand, or sit on the floor or the few benches, in a respectful hush.

Clumps of what appears to be blackened seaweed dangle overhead and, in varying intensities, water drips from above from time to time. The space feels damp, smells of a post-fire forest or sand dune. A far, faint fog horn sounds. Lighting gets alternately stronger or weaker as time passes.

Watching carefully, you notice the bodies’ minute shifts, the way you might take note of the slightest shift of the leaf of a tiny plant on the forest floor as you pass close by. You might see Koma reaching for Eiko, his back muscle's micro-movements eventually carrying him close enough to make contact with Eiko who is very still, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes half-open and glazed.

It might be, in a moment of illumination, you suddenly realize that, with his feet resting against her ankles, and now his fingertips gently touching hers, their bodies form a circle.

Naked: A Living Installation--part of Carnegie Hall’s JapanNYC Festival and presented in partnership with Asia Society and Danspace Project--continues through April 9 in BAC’s Studio 6A, Tuesdays-Fridays 6pm-10pm and Saturdays 3pm-9pm. Admission is free, and you are invited to come any time during open hours and stay as long as you’d like. Reservations are encouraged: Click here. You can bring drawing and writing materials, but photography and videotaping are prohibited. Also, be sure to visit Studio 6B to view examples of Eiko and Koma's media work.

Information

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Kashu-juku Noh Theater at Japan Society

In light of the tragic, still-unfolding events in Japan, the explicit message from Japan Society last evening could not have been clearer: Please focus on the depth, breadth and endurance of our culture.

With sober, subdued elegance, Japan Society presented the New York debut of Kashu-juku Noh Theater, the Kyoto-based troupe now touring North America. These sold-out performances, continuing tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm, are presented in conjunction with Carnegie Hall's JapanNYC Festival. A useful lecture, starting at 6:30 each evening and free to ticket-holders, traces the history and explores the aesthetics of noh and kyogen--elite, ritualistic theatrical forms rooted in Japan’s medieval warrior age, carefully tended by generations of masters, actors and musicians since the 14th Century. We are also treated to enticements to visit Kyoto.

Kashu-juku, under founder-director Katayama Shingo, has brought us three samples of the tradition:

An excerpt from Yashima: Here Umewaka Naoyoshi performs a famous mai-bayashi (a stripped-down solo in which musicians and chanters accompany a principal actor/dancer who performs mask-less and in a simple costume). A warrior’s ghost remembers a furious battle at sea: “I feel as if I am returning to that time again...the moon shines...light reflecting off the swords...the metallic helmets like stars in the sky...” As if drawing an abstract diagram on the floor, Umewaka advances and retreats, thrusts and withdraws, retracts a trembling gold/green fan and, kneeling, folds it. In an eerie kind of homeopathy, the violence of the ancient events, as replayed in his memory, is distilled to these simple, refined and, yes, ghostly actions set against the harshness of exceptionally spare drum beats, piercing flute notes and vocal whoops.

Boshibari (Tied to a Pole): A fine example of a kyogen, or comic dance, often performed as an interlude between noh acts. If noh represents the rarefied world of gods and aristocracy, the homelier kyogen gets down and dirty into the everyday world. In this piece, a master (Shimada Hiromi) attempts to prevent his servants from stealing his sake by tying them up--one standing with wrists lashed to a long pole; the other kneeling, with his hands restrained behind his back. It’s “a bothersome fix,” as the servants say. However, these two guys--Shigeyama Ippei and Shigeyama Doji--quickly figure out a clever and, yes, increasingly drunken workaround. This becomes quite a rocky dance and, with its outcome, one of the funniest parts of a sweetly amusing performance.

Aoi No Ue (Lady Aoi) draws from the legendary Tale of Genji and deals with Prince Genji’s jealous, vengeful mistress, Lady Rokujo (Katayama Shingo), possessing the being of her rival, the pregnant Lady Aoi (here represented, brilliantly, by a robe ritualistically folded and placed near the edge of the stage). As in the previous pieces, a monitor set to one side of the broad stage renders the Japanese dialogue in English. I was grateful for the translation, although I disliked having to glance away from the action. During Aoi no Ue, I missed most of the dialogue simply because its intense, pregnant stillness mesmerized me--as did the ultimately crucial rasp of prayer beads--and I could rarely avert my eyes.

Kashu-juku Noh Theater is sold out, but it’s worth taking a shot at the waiting list, beginning at 6:30pm at the box office.

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Traditional Japanese theater celebrated

Katayama Shingo (c)Kashu-juku Noh Theater

From March 24-26, Japan Society--in conjunction with Carnegie Hall's JapanNYC Festival--will present the New York debut of Kyoto's Kashu-juku Noh Theater in a special program offering "a rare opportunity to experience the 600-year-old tradition of noh and kyogen performed in one exceptional evening."

Performed in Japanese with English subtitles along with live music, the two-hour program will include:

MAI-BAYASHI: Literally translated as "dance and music," a mai-bayashi is a form of noh theater in which a principal character appears and performs a solo dance without a mask or costume and is accompanied by a group of chanters and musicians. A furious dance depicting the climactic battle scene from the famous noh play Yashima will be presented.

KYOGEN: Boshibari (Tied to a Pole) is one of the most popular plays in the kyogen repertoire. Two servants are tied up by their master in a cunning scheme to keep them from drinking his sake while he is away. They soon thirst for his wine. How will the two obtain their beloved beverage again?

NOH: Aoi no Ue (Lady Aoi). One of the most famous noh plays, Lady Aoi is an adaptation of a chapter from the classic Japanese novel, The Tale of Genji. The story follows Lady Rokujo (the jealous former-mistress of Genji), who sent an evil spirit to possess Genji's wife Lady Aoi, as she is confronted in combat by a Buddhist monk intent on saving her soul.

For complete information on this and related programming, as well as ticketing, click here.

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, (between 1st and 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

von Stade's Carnegie Hall farewell

Frederica von Stade’s Farewell to Carnegie Hall

by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, April 23, 2010