Thrilling collaboration between Kuniko Kato, Megumi Nakamura, and Luca Veggetti concludes Japan Society’s sixtieth anniversary season (photo by Julie Lemberger)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, $30, 7:30 PM
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

There was something serendipitous about Japan Society’s presentation of Project IX — Pléïades on May 2, the North American premiere of this exciting collaboration between Japanese percussionist Kuniko Kato, Japanese dancer Megumi Nakamura, and Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti. The finale of the sixtieth anniversary season of the cultural institution’s performing arts program — “a benchmark signifying longevity and rebirth,” artistic director Yoko Shioya has pointed out — Pléïades begins slowly, as Nakamura assembles Kato’s percussion kit at front right, from pieces that had been placed around the set. Soon, Hiroyoshi Takishima’s video is projected onto a horizontal scrim set at an angle on the stage. Takishima’s film shows six performances by Kato side-by-side, as if she is her own band; in each one she is playing one of the six different parts of Greek-French composer’s Iannis Xenakis’s percussive score. As Kato lies down behind the screen and Nakamura moves ever-so-gracefully in front of it, the projection shoots onto the ceiling above the audience, resulting in long, narrow abstract images that seem to form visual representations of Xenakis’s thrilling experimental work; meanwhile, Nakamura’s enlarged shadow can be seen on the right wall, giving further emphasis and beauty to Veggetti’s choreography. Although these appear to be purposeful extensions of the performance, it turns out that they are accidental bonuses that have occurred because of the shape and size of Japan Society’s auditorium. (At a reception after the show, Veggetti confirmed that they were indeed serendipitous accidents that everyone involved gave their blessing to.) The four sections of Pléïades are followed by Xenakis’s Rebonds, in which Nakamura continues her elegant movement and Kato situates herself at her percussion kit, playing her drums with a visual splendor that melds beautifully with Nakamura. Project IX — Pléïades, which continues May 3, is a wonderful conclusion to Japan Society’s sixtieth performing arts season.

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, $30, 7:30 PM
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

As part of the sixtieth anniversary of Japan Society’s performing arts program, the institution is presenting the North American premiere of Project IX — Pléïades, a multimedia music/video/movement piece. The “IX” in the title does not represent the Roman numeral “9” but the letters “I” and “X,” the initials of innovative Romanian-born Greek-French composer and musical theorist Iannis Xenakis. The evening is a collaboration between Japanese percussionist Kuniko Kato, who has released such albums as Cantus and Kuniko Plays Reich; Japanese dancer and teacher Megumi Nakamura, who has performed around the world with Jiří Kylián’s Nederlands Dans Theater, her own Dance Sangra, and other companies; and Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti, who has previously created works for the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, the Spoleto Festival, the Ballet of the Rome Opera, and the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky and was the 2011 resident artistic director of Morphoses. Kato will play Xennakis’s 1988 Rebonds, a multiple percussion solo in two parts, while Nakamura will dance to Xenakis’s 1978 Pléïades, a work for six percussionists in four movements. (“Pléïades” refers to the seven daughters of Atlas in Greek myth as well as the star cluster in the constellation Taurus.) “Why Xenakis, and why our interest in Xenakis? Xenakis had a strong interest in Japanese culture, and in Japanese theater in particular — which I share, by the way,” Veggetti, who is married to Japanese artist Moe Yoshida and has worked with Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa on several projects, says in the above promotional video. “In particular about noh theater, which for him represented some kind of supreme form in terms of theatrical tradition, which conveyed his ideas about theater so exactly. And so we felt that because of this connection it was natural to build a project that hereditarily comes from Japan and that we’re performing here with Japanese performers.” The program will take place May 2 & 3 at 7:30; the May 2 performance will be followed by a reception with the artists.