The Bessies to honor Japan Society's Yoko Shioya

Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director of Japan Society will receive
a Bessie: the 2019 Presenter Award for Outstanding Curation.

The Bessies organization (New York Dance and Performance Awards) has announced the recipient of its 2019 Presenter Award for Outstanding Curation--Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director of Japan Society. “Yoko has been an amazing force for good in the New York dance world, curating with a bold and discerning eye and bringing important work across cultures,” said Bessies Executive Director Lucy Sexton. “I am so pleased she is being honored with this award.” And I agree!

Celebrate with Shioya at the Bessies Presenters Gathering on Sunday, January 6 (5pm to 7pm) at La MaMa La Galleria. Free and open to all! RSVP here.

La MaMa La Galleria
47 Great Jones Street (between Bowery and Lafayette), Manhattan
(map/directions)

BIO

Yoko Shioya became artistic director of Japan Society in 2006, overseeing the organization’s performing arts and film departments. Since assuming the position of Director of Performing Arts in 2003, she has enlarged the scale and number of commissions for the creation of new works related to Japanese culture by non-Japanese artists, and increased the number of tours of Japan Society-produced works throughout North America. Shioya also launched new initiatives, including co-producing commissioned work by international artists with presenting organizations in Japan, presenting works from East Asian countries, and establishing artists’ residency projects in New York City. Known in Japan as a writer and researcher on the public and private arts support systems in the U.S. and Japan, Shioya has been invited to speak at numerous symposia and lectures and on TV programs presented by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government, Keidanren, the Academy of Cultural Economics, and the Japan Council of Performers’ Organizations, among others. She has been a regular contributor to arts columns on performing arts and exhibitions for the Asahi newspaper, and has served as a committee member and selection panelist for numerous programs, including the Bessie Awards, Rolex Mentor and Protegé International Program, and the Toyota Choreography Awards. Shioya holds BAs in musicology and dance history from Tokyo National University of the Arts.

About the Presenter Award for Outstanding Curating

Established in 2017, the Bessies Presenter Award for Outstanding Curating recognizes a presenter or curator of work performed in the New York City area. It is presented to an individual or curatorial team whose work has had a palpable impact on artists, audiences, or the dance and performance field in general. While the award can recognize sustained achievement in curating or presenting over time, it can equally recognize a particular project, festival, or season that occurred in the past year. Visiting or guest curators, as well as full-time curators and presenters, are eligible. The recipient is chosen jointly by the Bessies Selection and Bessies Steering Committees. The first Presenter Award (in 2017) went to Judy Hussie-Taylor, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Danspace Project, for her curation of A Body in Places, Danspace Project Platform 2016 by Eiko Otake. The second awardee (in 2018) was Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for his championing of dance on the stages of BAM.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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SPAC's "Mugen Noh Othello" at Japan Society in sold-out run

Japan Society, celebrating its 110th anniversary,
and The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival
present Satoshi Miyagi's Mugen Noh Othello.
(photo: Takuma Uchida)

Front left, Micari (Desdemona)
Front right, Maki Honda (Pilgrim from Venice)
with chanters (l-r): Kotoko Kiuchi, Yoneji Ouchi, Asuka Fuse,
Kazunori Abe, Fuyuko Moriyama and Haruyo Suzuki
(photo: Richard Termine)

Mugen Noh Othello

North American premiere

presented by Japan Society (NOH-NOW SERIES, PART IV)

part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival

Satoshi Miyagi and his acclaimed Shizuoka Performing Arts Center center and elevate the role of Shakespeare's Desdemona in Othello in Mugen Noh Othello. Seen through the tradition of mugen noh theater, the warrior Othello's wife and victim becomes the potentially disruptive shade trapped between life and definitive death until she can work through her story in front of the living. This crucial process for moving on and finding ultimate rest is, in a real sense, a form of theater as ritual to release her soul. Unlike most otherworldly beings in mugen noh, though, Miyagi's Desdemona is a more humble than formidable figure, appealing to the audience's sympathy.

As the tragic ghost, Micari, silkily, eerily skims the stage on feet we never see, voluminous robes concealing what surely must be casters bearing a body that admits no articulation, drawn forward as if by magnetic force. In her thin, delicate crown, she's a doll, the very model of perfection, but our final sight of her--oh, that parting gesture!--might reveal how much her devastating fate will always define her.

The full-bodied percussive music has power. As kneeling members of the superb chorus, arranged at stage left, chant the story, you will have to scan and stare hard at each mouth to determine the source of each utterance. Supertitles provide English translations, but I bet you'll find it tough to tear your eyes from the stately beauty on stage.

Script: Sukehiro Hirakawa
Original music: Hiroko Tanakawa (arranged by the actors)
Costume design: Kayo Takahashi
Lighting design: Koji Osako

Remaining shows of Mugen No Othello (tonight and Sunday) are sold out. Wait list lineup starts one hour prior to curtain. For information, click here.

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

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Rand Castile, 78

Rand Castile, Who Opened Doors for Asian Art, Dies at 78
by William Grimes, The New York Times, May 23, 2017

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Striking sound: Dance meets percussion at Japan Society

Choreographer Luca Veggetti and musician Kuniko Kato
collaborated with dancer Megumi Nakamura
on a multimedia work inspired by the music and theatrical ideas of Iannis Xenakis.

Project IX--Pleiades, a work by Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti to percussion music of Iannis Xenakis, received its North American premiere last evening at Japan Society. A duet for percussionist Kuniko Kato and dancer Megumi Nakamura, it was first shown, last month, in Yokohama, Japan.

The duet, initiating in Xenakis's Pléïades (1978), announces itself in a flare of sound that drops away before returning in a bright progression of chimes like sonic droplets sprinkling around you. The almost-physical presence of music here is key.

Above: Kato (l) with Megumi Nakamura
in Project IX--Pleiades
Below: Kato in action
(photos by Julie Lemberger)

When the piece opens, we first see Kato's instruments before we see the performers. Various drums, a marimba, xylophone and more span the theater's wide stage along with a scrim suspended along a diagonal. When the women finally arrive onstage, Nakamura assists Kato in moving all of her instruments to one corner of the stage in a long, serene passage, ceremonial in tone. But it would be a mistake to think that the dance begins only when every instrument is carefully situated. In a real way, the women have been dancing all along and now continue to do so.

Nakamura, recipient of numerous awards for interpreting modern and contemporary dance masters, brings attentiveness to Veggetti's ultimately cautious, if visceral, dissonance. Kato, though, commands attention, whether it be with her videotaped image multiplied and stretched across the scrim or her flesh-and-blood performance on the array of instruments--big, big, powerful moves into the surrounding space that throw off rhythmic slashes and shockwaves. She is solar.

All artists involved in this project are here to serve the music, but it is Kato who brings it. Last evening, the audience's fondness for her was completely clear and completely justified.

With sound design by Yuji Sagae, lighting design by Takeaki Iwashina and videography by Hiroyoshi Takishima

For tickets to the final performance of Project IX--Pleiades this evening at 7:30pm, click here.

For information on Japan Society programs, click here.

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

"Our Planet": a new Japan Society commission

Jenny Seastone Stern ("Luna") in Our Planet
(photo by Julie Lemberger)

You get dizzy, you get dazzled, you get giddy.

--from Yukio Shiba's Our Planet

For each performance of Our Planet, audiences--each thirty people only--hike all over Japan Society's midtown East landmark building for ninety minutes. They stand and perch in public and private spaces amid music and startling animated projections as they follow the long (really, really long), developing relationship between two playful neighbor kids. Okay, what if I were to tell you that those kids are Earth (Terri) and the moon (Luna); that neighborhood, the cosmos; and that relationship a matter of life (all life) and death (of stars and pretty much everything)? Intrigued yet? You should be.

The powerful actor Julian Rozzell, Jr., who eventually plays the female Terri in a skirt wrapped around his pants, first greets the audience in the darkened lobby, dramatically backlit by the light of an open elevator. On his lips, Yukio Shiba's text zips past you in bursts of forceful and mercurial dazzle--catch and hold what you can--setting up your understanding of the birth of a universe that will teem with the massive and the microscopic, and of a planet that will host all human experience, thought, speech and feelings.

Like a Pied Piper, Terri takes her charges on a journey, integrating them into each new environment, also placing little tea light "stars" here and there, even in the little pools of the lovely indoor water gardens. Eventually, Terri leads her followers upstairs to encounter Luna, embodied by Jenny Seastone Stern, where begins an initially shy and then fervent friendship, one faithful even through distance, time and time's inevitable changes. Our relationship with the convincingly girlish Luna--and with the innards of Japan Society's home--also grows. You might even find yourself seated to tea at a family table where Luna speaks the entire communal dialogue. Stern brings vulnerability and lightheartedness to her role, drawing something of the same from Rozzell, Jr. Well matched, they are.

All in all, you can't help but get a little dizzy, a little dazzled, a little giddy. Happily, there are guides all around to help you watch your step.

Direction: Alec Duffy (Hoi Polloi)
Scenic design: Mimi Lien
Costumes: Becky Lasky
Lighting design: Jiyoun Chang
Music composition and sound design: Tei Blow
Motion graphics: Nobuyuki Hanabusa

No late entry. Be prepared to stand, walk up and down stairs and, at times, sit on little cushions or benches. You're encouraged to leave your coats and belongings at the coat check. I'd recommend keeping a light sweater with you: The building is fairly cool.

Running time: 90 minutes

Through December 8 (various dates/times). Due to audience-size limitations, a number of performances are already sold out. Click here for complete schedule details and ticketing.

Japan Society

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

(map/direction)

Basil Twist's "Dogugaeshi" puppet theater returns to Japan Society

In Basil Twist's ingenious Dogugaeshi--now sold out in its new run at Japan Society through Sunday--painted images recede and shrink, or steadily press forward, growing in intensity, or playfully pop up from out of nowhere. This kaleidoscope of sliding doors, dancing panels, Shinto gateways, silhouettes of people and objects, and glowing candlelight creates a continuously altered environment, a theatrical experience that disorients and enchants.

Dogugaeshi's white fox

It's sort of a shaggy fox story--featuring, at times, a shaggy white fox puppet--with no recognizable narrative and little conventional action, just the almost neverending opening of painted portal after painted portal onto more portals, each awaiting its turn to be pulled aside. This series of revelations, this simple dance of decor--dogugaeshi means "set change"--leads you, step by step, to a final, quiet awareness of the mysterious, archetypal essence of theater.

Sliding panels and some elusive fox puppets from Dogugaeshi

Presented in a deliberately constrained space--hence the quick dispersal of tickets--Dogugaeshi flows like dream inside your head. It can be a sweet dream. (Have you met that loping, Trickster fox--familiar of the god Inari--with his gorgeous eyes?) Or, like very different types of dreams, it can be frustrating or even anxiety-provoking. My general memories suggest that, for the current production, Twist has made changes from 2007 version of Dogugaeshi, seen here at Japan Society.

Shamisen musician and singer Yumiko Tanaka in Dogugaeshi

For one thing, this new edition acknowledges and evokes northeastern Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In one section, the delicate decor's walls and panels flap and tremble; tattered panels fall from the little ceiling as Yumiko Tanaka's shamisen emits shrieks and grinding sounds. Our thoughts surely go to Japan's historic trauma, but like everything else in Dogugaeshi, what we see before us and hear from Tanaka's masterful singing and playing seem like externalizations of our own sensations and feelings, all of this experience and information looping forward and back between us and the little puppet stage.

Although you probably do not have a ticket for Dogugaeshi, you can catch up on the many other events planned for Japan Society's 2013-14 season--including a shamisen workshop with Yumiko Tanaka on Saturday, November 2 (1pm). Click here for Japan Society's general information and schedule.

For more information on Basil Twist's extraordinary work, click here.

Signs of (artificial) intelligent life

 A scene from I, Worker (Photo: Osaka University & Eager Co. Ltd.)

This weekend, Japan Society presents Seinendan Theater Company and Osaka University Robot Theater Project in a haunting pair of one-act plays written and directed by Seinendan founder Oriza Hirata. Hirata's plays were developed in collaboration with noted robotics researcher Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University. Dr. Ishiguro's work posits a future for useful human-robot coexistence and interaction. The plays--Sayonara (2010) and I, Worker (2008)--feature performances by robots and androids as well as human actors. Guess who ends up making the stronger impact?

Meet, for example, Geminoid F, which made its theatrical debut in Sayonara. This "female type tele-operated android...resembles the person it was originally modeled after," we learn from the android's bio in the program. Indeed, Geminoid F looks precisely like a youngish, well-bred brunette, her modest black clothing stylishly accented with high-heel black suede bootlets. Now check this out: "Geminoid F is equipped with 12 motorized actuators powered by air pressure, which allows it to mimic human facial expressions."

Delicate of features, demure of expression, Geminoid F portrays an android acquired by a man to provide poetic talk therapy for his terminally-ill daughter. The two characters--therapist and client--sit across from each other in a spare, black-and-white set. Geminoid F, hands folded in its lap, might make a minute turn or inclination of its head or convincingly blink its eyelids, but it stays put. Although the daughter is given more movement range and even rises from her chair on occasion, you might find yourself assigning more human-type reality to the artificial intelligence gazing at its client and reciting tankas.

Client and therapist quietly converse and trade tankas in several languages. The dialogue seems crafted to allow for spaciousness--and, perhaps, in a practical sense, time for the human actor to insert her lines between those of the android. It's not clear whether the emergence of Geminoid F's words is manually prompted or if those lines have been pre-recorded, but the latter seems the more likely case.

Sayonara takes a spell-breaking turn at one point, which I won't reveal here. Still, it leaves a viewer enchanted and wondering what brave new world we face when a machine designed to alleviate loneliness can effectively mimic compassion and poetic wisdom.

From the start, I, Worker brings a charming, gentle humor to the same question. Here, the attendant robots--Takeo and Momoko--are the household help for an amiable young Japanese couple. (Momoko is said to be a really good cook, and it looks like her human clients are chowing down on slices of pizza. Yum, yum.) Cute and cartoony--and far more conventionally AI-looking than Geminoid F--the pair of robots verbally express and physically exhibit sensitivity of thought and feelings. (Momoko: "The hardest thing for robots used to be holding an uncooked egg. Now, we can hold a human baby.") With prefabricated but, nevertheless, subtle movements, they show wit, worry, sadness, guilt, bashfulness and empathy. Clearly, we will need to think less about the possibility of losing our jobs to an army of mechanized workers and more about the chance that, one day, they might better us at connecting and loving.

We're expecting a fairly rough storm, but if the weather eases up, consider taking a chance to see these two unforgettable plays. Remaining shows are Friday, February 8 and Saturday, February 9, both at 7:30 PM. Running time is 75 minutes with a brief intermission.

Ticket information

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

*****

Upcoming stops on this production's tour

Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Live Arts, February 15-16
Burlington, VT: Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, February 21-22
Toronto, Canada: Canadian Stage, February 26–March 2
Pittsburgh, PA: Andy Warhol Museum, March 8-9

Beate Gordon, 89

Beate Gordon, Long-Unsung Heroine of Japanese Women’s Rights, Dies at 89
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, January 1, 2013

New Kota Yamazaki work coming to Japan Society

from Kota Yamazaki's (glowing)
(Photo: Ryutaro Mishima)

Japan Society will present (glowing), a new work from Bessie Award-winner Kota Yamazaki (of Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug), co-commissioned with The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center/EMPAC.

Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28 at 7:30pm

In (glowing), Bessie Award-winner Kota Yamazaki explores his butoh roots through collaboration with an international company of dancers, and notably, through African dance.

Inspired by the renowned essay In’ei Raisan (In Praise of Shadows) by the great modern Japanese novelist Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (1886–1965), which describes Japan’s appreciation of the exquisite beauty found only in darkness and shadows, this new work by Kota Yamazaki re-examines the fundamentals of butoh, the form in which he received his training.  

Six dancers hailing from Senegal, Ethiopia, Japan, and the US, perform within a set that evokes the soft lighting and dim interior of a traditional Japanese house, where shadows contribute to a visual atmosphere.  Set Design is by Robert Kocik.  Lighting Design is by Kathy Kaufmann.  The original score/soundscape is by Tokyo-based composer Kohji Setoh.  (glowing) is performed by: Marie Agnes Gomis (Senegal), Shiferaw Tariku (Ethiopia), Ryoji Sasamoto (NY-based/Japan), Mina Nishimura (NY-based/Japan), Eva Schmidt (US) and Maggie Bennett (US).

For more information and ticketing, click here.

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

Art critics award best shows of 2011

Art Critics’ Association Announces Awards for Best Shows of 2011
by The New York Times, March 15, 2012

A new year starts with APAP

Top, L-R: Bergen Wheeler, Douglas Gillespie, Leslie Kraus and Luke Murphy
in Kate Weare's Garden
Below, front: Leslie Kraus with Bergen Wheeler in Garden
Photos ©Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang

My illustrious guest for The Joyce Theater's second evening of Focus Dance, faced with no project to showcase for APAP this season, was jazzed about being able to run around seeing lots of stuff, just like the rest of us. "It's like New Year's Eve all over again!" she said--only one of many encouraging things she said--uttering what might be my motto for this APAP season and more. Every encounter, greeted with openness and genuine interest: Perhaps that could be a worthy New Year's resolution in dance and beyond dance.

If so, my first APAP event, Focus Dance--one of the latest in a cluster of APAP-related dance festivals--certainly snapped into focus with presentations by Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion and Kate Weare Company on their shared program on Wednesdav evening.

Weare's Garden is a keen, satisfying journey into what could be an alternate universe's sexually-fluid, seductive and treacherous Eden crafted by an alternate, wilder-minded Martha Graham. Weare's dancers, as always, are all gems but, as always, it's impossible to take your eyes off the two women--Leslie Kraus and Bergen Wheeler--whose performances are larger than life.

Scene from Kyle Abraham's Live!: The Realest MC
Photos ©Steven Schreiber

Abraham's company opens the Focus Dance evening with excerpts from Live!: The Realest MC, a dazzling, emotionally affecting ensemble on the complications of Black masculinity. It is this young choreographer's best effort to date. From the glittery costumes by Abraham and Kristi Wood to the rich, gorgeous lighting design by Dan Scully, this production holds together in a seamless system and  shows evidence of a bright artist who knows who he is and has something worth saying. His movement scheme draws ideas from popular culture without settling for the easy, familiar image. He always wants to find out what else he can do with it, what's underneath it, how it might look on a different body. And he has not stopped exploring new ways to cut and shape space. A wizard of a dancer in his own right, Abraham is joined here by a snazzy, diverse group of performers--Rena Butler, Chalvar Monteiro, Elyse Morris, Rachelle Rafailedes, Hsiao-Jou Tang and Maleek Malaki Washington--who I hope will stay and continue to grow right along with him.

If tickets are still available, don't miss the second and last Kyle Abraham/Kate Weare evening, this Sunday at 7:30pm. For information, click here.

The Joyce Theater

Eighth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets, Manhattan

(directions)

Members of chelfitsch Theater Company
in Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech

Photos ©Julie Lemberger 2012

Below: Mari Ando and Taichi Yamagata

chelfitsch Theater Company's return to Japan Society--as part of The Public Theater's notable APAP fest, Under The Radar is cause for celebration. And that's true even though Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech (2009)--a trio of nutty little workplace scenarios written and directed by Toshiki Okada--takes off from a boring, antiseptic environment that is anything but celebratory. I love the way these guys just smack woozy sound and banal, obsessive text up against fidgety, painfully askew movement in a depiction of a way of life that is seriously out of whack. Even so, their characters often have a charm that relieves the cartoonish abstraction. Trust me, it's all fun, and all expertly done--particularly the movement and particularly when Mari Ando and Taichi Yamagata do the Air Conditioner duet (photo above). Do not miss!

Seats are limited. Hurry to see chelfitsch at Japan Society now through January 14. For information, click here.

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

See my favorite things of 2011. Click here!

Eiko & Koma: so delicious

Take a workshop in "Delicious Movement"
with master dancer artists Eiko & Koma at Japan Society!

Delicious Movement workshop and talk

Saturday, December 3 (1pm-5pm)

MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Eiko & Koma return to Japan Society with their one-of-a-kind movement workshop and post-workshop talk.  Guiding participants through a series of exercises designed to increase focus and coordination as well as pleasure in movement, this workshop is for anyone who loves to move or wants to love to move.  The session concludes with a talk about the couple’s remarkable 40 years of artistic ingenuity, including video presentation of some of their activities in the three-year Retrospective Project.  Movement workshop: 1pm-4pm. Video talk and discussion: 4pm-5pm.

For complete information and ticketing, click here. 

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

In Summation, a benefit for Japan

Summation Dance Company invites you to a humanitarian benefit for Japan with all proceeds going to Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Saturday, April 9, 8pm

Featuring a special performance of Keep Your Feathers Dry and a guest appearance by musician Kelli Scarr

NYU Tisch School of the Arts (5th Floor Theatre)
111 Second Avenue (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

For ticket information, click here.

Learn more about Summation Dance Company here.

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)

Japan Society's Concert for Japan

CONCERT FOR JAPAN

Saturday, April 9 (11am to 11pm)

at Japan Society

Japan Society presents a 12 hour concert benefiting organizations that directly help people affected by the earthquake and tsunamis that struck Japan. With dozens of music acts and performances throughout the day, confirmed performers for the 6-8 pm gala block, organized by John Zorn, include Philip Glass; Hal Willner; Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Zorn; Ryuichi Sakamoto; and Bill Laswell and gigi band.

Special activities will be available for all ages, from making paper cranes and washi lanterns for good luck, to basic Japanese language classes, to unlimited access to Bye Bye Kitty!!!.

100% of the admission sales from this event will go to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.

Food and drink will be available for purchase.

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)

Kazuo Ohno: official NYT obituary

Kazuo Ohno, a Founder of Japanese Butoh, Dies at 103

by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, June 1, 2010

Witness this!

So, back in January of last year, when I gave you an assignment to see Dan Safer's Witness Relocation troupe, did you follow through?

I hope so, because now you have a fresh assignment: See Dan Safer's Witness Relocation. 

Okay, that might not sound so fresh, but listen up: This time, they're at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theater, doing a very American take on Aya Ogawa's English translation of Toshiki Okada's wacky Five Days in March. I saw this 2004 piece performed in Japanese (with English subtitles) by Okada's chelfitsch Theater Company at Japan Society.  I reviewed that show here in February 2009.

As good as chelfitsch's show was, in its way, Safer's spoken-English, American pop-culture version opens up, punches up and clarifies Five Days with a visually and aurally gorgeous production and with outrageously capacious, perversely genius performances by Mike Mikos, Sean Donovan, Wil Petre, Heather Christian, Kourtney Rutherford, Chris Giarmo and Laura Berlin Stinger. I think that's because Witness Relocation--a company devoted to seamless theater/dance mashup--was made for this meta-tale of young, self-absorbed party-people in Japan recounting a five-night "love hotel" tryst conducted while Dubya was getting ready to wreak havoc on Iraq. WR brings out both the callous, mindless excess and the poignancy in Okada's story. Safer's direction and choreography; Dave Malloy's music; Jay Ryan's sets and lights; and Deb O's costumes are all award-worthy.

Luckily, you've got a few more weeks to get there. The show runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2:30pm through May 23. (No performance on Sun 5/16, Added 2:30pm performance on 5/22)

Information and ticketing

La MaMa E.T.C.
74A East 4th Street, Manhattan
212-475-7710

Starting the new year right

One day, the winter holidays will be over. The tree trimmings and Nutcracker productions will be tucked away for another year. And, you'll look around and realize it's that sad little unloved period ot time called early January. And you'll say to yourself, "Gee, I'm think I'm about ready for some cutting-edge performance!"

And that's where APAP comes in!

Each year, New York's artists and venues set up shows specifically targeting performing arts presenters, from all over America and abroad, attending the APAP Conference. These shows are a great way to catch up on work that you missed during previous seasons or to get another good look at dances that continue to intrigue you.

For example, here's the lineup for AMERICAN REALNESS, a fest running at Abrons Arts Center and other venues, from Jan 8-11.

Luciana Achugar, Franny and Zooey
Jack Ferver, A Movie Star Needs a Movie
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Last Meadow
Trajal Harrell, Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (S)
Zoe|Juniper, A Crack in Everything
Layard Thompson, cUp—pUck…
Jeremy Wade, I Offer My Self to Thee
Ann Liv Young, Ann Liv Young Does Sherry

You'll want to grab some of these, for sure. So, click here for schedule, location and ticketing details.

Performance Space 122 has it's own APAP-related series at home and other venues--they call it COIL--running January 6-17 and including the likes of Maria Hassabi, Morgan Thorson and LOW, LeeSaar The Company, Megan Sprenger/MV Works, Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl with Emily Johnson and The National Theater of the United States of America. Click here for details.

Dance Theater Workshop offers Tere O'Connor, Faye Driscoll and Pam Tanowitz in its APAP series, January 7-11. Click here.

Keep your eyes peeled for more great shows around town!

Jeremy Wade: Cute, then not so cute

Director-choreographer Jeremy Wade concludes There is No End to More--performed by Jared Gradinger of Berlin's Constanza Macras/Dorky Park troupe--at Japan Society tonight. So, people, there really is an end to No End. Try, try, try to get in.

This production--and Gradinger's demanding, non-stop solo--hit me with the force of a thousand-thousand stars. If that sounds like a wild exaggeration, let it. It should give you a sense of the intensity of the manga-fabulous text dreamed up by writer Marcos Rosales with Gradinger and Wade, the increasingly maniacal, nightmare visuals by illustrator Hiroki Otsuka and video artist Veith Michel, and Brendan Dougherty's breathtaking sonic design.

Moving in the jerky, grotesque style that Wade, a Bessie Award winner, has made his trademark, Gradinger depicts a nerdy figure trapped in an overheated mental bubble filled with obsessive fantasies and fanciful artifacts of Japanese kawaii ("cute") pop culture. Gradinger believes he is "wearing a three-piece suit--and a cape."  He is "being chased, chased by...I don't know what!" As kawaii commercialism spins out of control, fantasy slips into sad realism which, in turn, becomes sinister phantasmagoria. This work is rich, visceral, unforgettable.

And enough cannot be said about the creative imagination--that sheer, defiant, leap-of-faith agility--of Yoko Shioya, Japan Society's perceptive artistic director. Following hunches, she commissioned this work from the Berlin-based Wade and brought it to New York, sight unseen. She tends to do this kind of thing, and bless her.

Information and ticketing or 212-715-1258