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UNDER THE RADAR 2014

The Public Theater and other venues
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
January 8-19, $20-$28 (UTR Packs $75 for five shows)
212-967-7555
www.undertheradarfestival.com

The tenth edition of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival is another diverse collection of unique and unusual international theatrical productions, roundtable discussions, and free live music, from the strange to the familiar, the offbeat to the downright impossible to describe. Among the sixteen shows, most of which take place at the Public, are 600 Highwaymen’s The Record, a dance-theater work that brings together a roomful of strangers to comment on the relationship between performer and audience; John Hodgman’s one-man piece, I Stole Your Dad, in which the Daily Show “resident expert” shares intimate, personal stories about his family and technology while baring himself onstage; psychiatrist Kuro Tanino and his Niwa Gekidan Penino company’s The Room Nobody Knows (at Japan Society), about two brothers getting ready for the older one’s birthday party; Andrew Ondrejcak’s Feast, in which a king and his court (starring Reg E. Cathey) have a farewell dinner as Babylon collapses; and the American premiere of hip-hopper Kate Tempest and Battersea Arts Centre’s Brand New Ancients (at St. Ann’s Warehouse), a multidisciplinary show about everyday life in a changing world. Also on the roster is Sacred Stories, Toshi Reagon’s thirtieth annual birthday celebration with special guests; Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man improvisation, Rodney King; a reimagining of Sekou Sundiata’s blessing the boats with Mike Ladd, Will Power, and Carl Hancock Rux; Cie. Philippe Saire’s Black Out (at La MaMa), Edgar Oliver’s Helen and Edgar, Lola Arias’s El Año en que nací / The year I was born (at La MaMa), SKaGeN’s BigMouth, tg STAN’s JDX — a public enemy, Sean Edward Lewis’s work-in-progress Frankenstein (at the Freeman Space), excerpts from ANIMALS’ The Baroness Is the Future, and Daniel Fish’s Eternal, the last three also part of the Incoming! Festival within a Festival.

Kate Tempest will rap about the state of the world in BRAND NEW ANCIENTS (photo by Christine Hardinge)

In addition, there will be numerous postshow talkbacks, a pair of workshops with Sara De Roo and Jolente De Keersmaker of tg STAN on January 10-11, four noon Culturebot conversations January 11-12 and 18-19, and Coil, Under the Radar, Prototype, and American Realness have joined forces to present free live concerts every night from January 9 to 19 in the Lounge at the Public, including Invincible, Christeene, Ethan Lipton, Heather Christian & the Arbonauts, Sky-Pony, Timur and the Dime Museum, the Middle Church Jerriesse Johnson Gospel Choir, M.A.K.U. Sound System, DJ Acidophilus, and Nick Hallett, Space Palace, and Woahmone DJs.

REBIRTH: RECENT WORK BY MARIKO MORI

Mariko Mori, “Transcircle 1.1,” stone, Corian, LED, real-time control system, 2004 (courtesy of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo / photo by Richard Goodbody)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 12, $12 (free Friday from 6:00 to 9:00)
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

For her first museum show in more than a decade, Tokyo-born artist Mariko Mori explores the interconnectedness between humanity and the cosmos, the body and the universe, and the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Continuing through January 12 at Japan Society, “Rebirth” comprises sculpture, video, photography, and installation that celebrates peace and love while delving into a past, present, and future that comes together through primal consciousness. “Why are souls born in this world, and why do we depart to another world? Why have we chosen to leave that world to be born in this world and exist in the here and now?” Mori asked in a 2007 interview with Lida Takayo that the author incorporates into the exhibition catalog essay “Mariko Mori’s ‘Rebirth’: Ancient, Futuristic Visions.” “There can be only one answer. We are here so that we can experience love. I was born here so that my love can bring peace to the world,” Mori concludes. The artist, who lives and works in Tokyo, London, and New York, takes visitors on a journey from the Middle Jōmon period of several thousand centuries BCE to the birth of a star, beginning with the glowing Lucite “Ring,” which hangs over the lobby pond, and “Birds I,” nearly hidden in the bamboo garden above. The pairing of “Primal Memory” with “Mask,” followed by “Flatstone” and “Transcircle 1.1,” meld such ancient traditions as the stone circle with modern technology; for example, the Stonehenge-like “Transcircle 1.1” consists of nine tall monoliths arranged in a circle, glowing in changing LED color schemes based on the orbit of the eight planets and Pluto around the sun. Meanwhile, the ceramic rocks in “Flatstone” are centered by an acrylic version of the Middle Jōmon vase on view nearby.

White Hole, 2008–10. Acrylic and LED lights; 136 1/8 × 103 1/2 inches. Courtesy of SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo and Sean Kelly, New York. Installation photograph by Richard Goodbody.

Mariko Mori, “White Hole,” acrylic and LED lights, 2008-10 (courtesy SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo, and Sean Kelly, New York / photo by Richard Goodbody)

In the almost blindingly white Bamboo Room, consciousness is further raised in “Miracle,” comprising eight brightly colored Cibachrome prints on the back wall and a round platform over which a small crystal ball dangles on a chain above the smooth epoxy orb “Tama I” and salt. Walking slowly around the platform offers visitors a changing reality. The exhibition, which also includes the “Journey to Seven Light Bay, Primal Rhythm” video of the first of Mori’s six planned outdoor site-specific environmental sculptural projects, the drawing series “Higher Being” and “White Hole,” and the “Ālaya” digital video (as well as bonus black-and-white archaeological photographs on the lower level), concludes with the consciousness-expanding immersive multimedia installation “White Hole.” In a dark room at the end of a short, winding corridor, a convex circle awaits, looking like a large futuristic eye centered on a low, angled ceiling. Soon a light projection emerges, growing and spiraling as it echoes a star being absorbed into a black hole and being freed from gravity through a white hole. “If the dramas of death and rebirth, as well as new birth, unfold across many parallel dimensions, there exists an eternal time and space that has no beginning and no end,” Mori has said about the piece. “I hope this work serves as a simulacrum of death and rebirth, prompting us to rethink the multidimensional universe that defies our imagination.” To get the full experience, visitors should first lie down on the provided mat, staring into the middle of the hole, but then get up and approach the light, following its dizzying journey. In fact, much of “Rebirth” is rewarded by spending time with the objects, meditating on them while considering the interdependence of humanity and the universe.

RICHIE’S FANTASTIC FIVE — KUROSAWA, MIZOGUCHI, OZU, YANAGIMACHI & KORE-EDA: LATE AUTUMN

Nobuo Nakamura, Ryuji Kita, and Shin Saburi play a trio of matchmaking yentas in Ozu’s LATE AUTUMN

LATE AUTUMN (AKIBIYORI) (Yasujirō Ozu, 1960)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Thursday, December 12, $12, 7:00
Series runs monthly through February
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Yasujirō Ozu revisits one of his greatest triumphs, 1949’s Late Spring, in the 1960 drama Late Autumn, the Japanese auteur’s fourth color film and his third-to-last work. Whereas the black-and-white Late Spring is about a widowed father (Chishu Ryu) and his unmarried adult daughter (Setsuko Hara) contemplating their futures, Late Autumn deals with young widow Akiko Miwa (Hara again) and her daughter, Ayako (Yoku Tsukasa). At a ceremony honoring the seventh anniversary of Mr. Miwa’s death, several of his old friends gather together and are soon plotting to marry off both the younger Akiko, whom they all had crushes on, and twenty-four-year-old Ayako. The three businessmen — Soichi Mamiya (Shin Saburi), Shuzo Taguchi (Nobuo Nakamura), and Seiichiro Hirayama (Ryuji Kita) — serve as a kind of comedic Greek chorus, matchmaking and arguing like a trio of yentas, while Akiko and Ayako maintain creepy smiles as the men lay out their misguided, unwelcome plans. Mamiya makes numerous attempts to fix Ayako up with one of his employees, Shotaru Goto (Keiji Sada), but Ayako wants none of it, preferring the freedom and independence displayed by her best friend, Yoko (Yuriko Tashiro), who represents the new generation in Japan. At the same time, their matchmaking for Akiko borders on the slapstick. Based on a story by Ton Satomi, Late Autumn, written by Ozu with longtime collaborator Kôgo Noda, is a relatively lighthearted film from the master, with sly jokes and playful references while examining a Japan that is in the midst of significant societal change in the postwar era. Kojun Saitô’s Hollywood-esque score is often bombastically melodramatic, but Yuuharu Atsuta’s cinematography keeps things well grounded with Ozu’s trademark low-angle, unmoving shots amid carefully designed interior sets.

Japan Society series honors Donald Richie (l.) with screening of film by Yasujiro Ozu (c.)

Late Autumn is downright fun to watch, and you can see it on December 12 — Ozu’s 110th birthday, as well as the 50th anniversary of his death — at 7:00 at Japan Society, introduced by director, writer, and producer Atsushi Funahashi, as part of the monthly tribute series “Richie’s Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda,” which honors Ohio-born writer, critic, scholar, curator, and filmmaker Donald Richie, who died in February at the age of eighty-eight. Richie was a tireless champion of Japanese culture and, particularly, cinema, and the series features six works by five of his favorite directors. Here’s what Richie said about Late Autumn: “A daughter is reluctant to leave her widowed mother, even though it is time for her to marry. The story could be seen as a ‘remake’ of Late Spring — and though more autumnal, it is just as moving.” The Late Autumn screening will also be followed by a special Ozu birthday reception. The series continues in January with Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri and concludes in February with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, appropriately on the one-year anniversary of Richie’s passing.

ALEC DUFFY: OUR PLANET

OUR PLANET (photo by Julie Lemberger / www.julielemberger.com)

Luna (Jenny Seastone Stern) and Terri (Julian Rozzell Jr.) take audience on multimedia journey through Japan Society and the universe in OUR PLANET (photo by Julie Lemberger / www.julielemberger.com)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
November 20-24, December 5-8, $28, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

In the past few years, several site-specific shows have led audiences through historic, landmarked, and/or unusual buildings, going into rooms not otherwise open to the public. An adaptation of Joseph Roth’s Hotel Savoy took place throughout the Goethe-Institut, Sleep No More is still packing them in all over the McKittrick Hotel, and Manna-Hatta served as a guided tour not only of the history of Manhattan but of much of the James A. Farley Post Office as well. Now Our Planet, inspired by Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, uses the lobby, pond, offices, basement, exhibition rooms, stage, and more of Japan Society to tell its audiovisual story of the birth — and eventual death — of the world. “I think everyone should see this building . . . in a really peculiar, interesting way and have this text be the vehicle for that exploration,” director Alec Duffy, who fell in love with the building while working there for a year, explains in a promotional video for the site-specific show. And Our Planet, a Japan Society commission in celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of its performing arts program, is certainly peculiar and interesting. Julian Rozzell Jr. stars as Terri, who leads thirty visitors through the beginning of the play; he is soon met by Jenny Seastone Stern as Luna, the moon. The two play house and discuss the state of the world in a fun scene that takes place inside Mariko Mori’s appropriately titled “Rebirth” exhibition. Speaking both metaphorically and metaphysically, Terri and Luna explore life on the micro level, involving Luna’s family, and on the macro level, involving the entire universe. In several of the locations, Nobuyuki Hanabusa’s motion graphics, consisting of geometric shapes and patterns, lines, stars, and more, are projected onto unique spaces, from elevator doors to a specially designed platform on the floor that reflects onto a ceiling mirror, taking the audience on a cosmic trip through the galaxy. The text, translated by Katsunori Obata and Miharu Obata and adapted by Aya Ogawa from Yukio Shiba’s award-winning Japanese production, Wagahoshi, is often mysterious and sometimes way out there, but just go with it, putting your faith in Rozzell J. and Seastone Stern, who are both beguiling and enchanting as they each deliver long monologues and take the audience on a multimedia journey through space, time, and the historic Japan Society building. Our Planet continues with six performances December 5-8, with each show limited to thirty people, so get your tickets now if you want to see this very peculiar, interesting work.

OUR PLANET

OUR PLANET will take audiences on a tour of Japan Society and the world itself

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
November 20-24, December 5-8, $28, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

In February 2012, Japan Society presented a reading of Katsunori and Miharu Obata’s translation of Yukio Shiba’s Our Planet as part of the program “Play Reading Series: Contemporary Japanese Plays in English Translation.” Shiba’s work, which was loosely inspired by Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and won the 2010 Kishida Kunio Drama Award, explores the everyday life of a family in relation to the birth and death of Earth. The reading was directed by Hoi Polloi artistic director Alec Duffy, who is now back at Japan Society for the world premiere of the full production of Our Planet, running November 20-24 and December 5-8. The ninety-minute show, featuring Julian Rozzell Jr. as Terri and Jenny Seastone Stern as Luna, takes place throughout the landmark building, which was designed by Junzo Yoshimura, opened in 1971, and went through a major renovation in 1998. Each performance is limited to thirty people, who will be led through galleries, offices, hidden stairwells, and other areas usually not available to the public. The scenic design is by Mimi Lien, with costumes by Becky Lasky, lighting by Jiyoun Chang, music and sound by Tei Blow, and projections by Nobuyuki Hanabusa. Several performances are already sold out, so you better act quickly if you want to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

RICHIE’S FANTASTIC FIVE — KUROSAWA, MIZOGUCHI, OZU, YANAGIMACHI & KORE-EDA: THE LIFE OF OHARU

Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka) lives a life filled with misery after misery in Mizoguchi melodrama

THE LIFE OF OHARU (SAIKAKU ICHIDAI ONNA) (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, November 16, $12, 6:00
Series runs monthly through February
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

We used to think that Aki Kaurismäki’s The Match Factory Girl was the saddest film ever made about a young woman who just can’t catch a break, as misery after misery keeps piling up on her ever-more-pathetic existence. But the Finnish black comedy has nothing on Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu, a searing, brutal example of the Buddhist observation of impermanence and the role of women in Japanese society. The film, based on a seventeenth-century novel by Ihara Saikaku, is told in flashback, with Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka) recounting what led her to become a fifty-year-old prostitute nobody wants. It all starts to go downhill after she falls in love with Katsunosuke (Toshirô Mifune), a lowly page beneath her family’s station. The affair brings shame to her mother (Tsukie Matsuura) and father (Ichiro Sugai), as well as exile. The family is redeemed when Oharu is chosen to be the concubine of Lord Matsudaira (Toshiaki Konoe) in order to give birth to his heir, but Lady Matsudaira (Hisako Yamane) wants her gone once the baby is born, and so she is sent home again, without the money her father was sure would come to them. Over the next several years, Oharu becomes involved in a series of personal and financial relationships, each one beginning with at least some hope and promise for a better future but always ending in tragedy. Nevertheless, she keeps on going, despite setback after setback, bearing terrible burdens while never giving up. Mizoguchi (Sansho the Bailiff, The 47 Ronin, Street of Shame) bathes much of the film in darkness and shadow, casting an eerie glow over the unrelentingly melodramatic narrative. Tanaka, who appeared in fifteen of Mizoguchi’s films and also became the second Japanese woman director (Love Letter, Love Under the Crucifix), gives a subtly compelling performance as Oharu, one of the most tragic figures in the history of cinema.

Donald Richie called THE LIFE OF OHARU “one of Mizoguchi’s most elegantly beautiful films”

Winner of the International Prize at the 1952 Venice International Film Festival, The Life of Oharu is screening on November 16 at 6:00 at Japan Society, introduced by filmmaker and scholar Joel Neville Anderson, as part of the monthly tribute series “Richie’s Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda,” which honors Ohio-born writer, critic, scholar, curator, and filmmaker Donald Richie, who died in February at the age of eighty-eight. Richie was a tireless champion of Japanese culture and, particularly, cinema, and the series features six works by five of his favorite directors. Here’s what Richie said about The Life of Oharu: “Based on a light and picaresque novel by the seventeenth-century writer Saikaku, the film takes a more serious view of the decline and fall of the heroine — from court lady to common whore. Yoshikata Yoda’s script, Tanaka’s performance as Oharu, Hiroshi Mizutani’s art direction, and Ichiro Saito’s score — using Japanese instruments — help make this one of Mizoguchi’s most elegantly beautiful films.” The series continues in December with Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Autumn (screening on Ozu’s birthday, which will also mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death), in January with Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri, and in February with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, appropriately on the one-year anniversary of Richie’s passing.

RICHIE’S FANTASTIC FIVE — KUROSAWA, MIZOGUCHI, OZU, YANAGIMACHI & KORE-EDA: HIGH AND LOW

A group of men try to find kidnappers in Akira Kurosawa’s tense noir / police procedural

HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU) (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, October 18, $12, 7:00
Series runs monthly through February
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

On the verge of being forced out of the company he has dedicated his life to, National Shoes executive Kingo Gondo’s (Toshirō Mifune) life is thrown into further disarray when kidnappers claim to have taken his son, Jun (Toshio Egi), and are demanding a huge ransom for his safe return. But when Gondo discovers that they have mistakenly grabbed Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), the son of his chauffeur, Aoki (Yutaka Sada), he at first refuses to pay. But at the insistence of his wife (Kyogo Kagawa), the begging of Aoki, and the advice of police inspector Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama), he reconsiders his decision, setting in motion a riveting police procedural that is filled with tense emotion. Loosely based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novel King’s Ransom, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low is divided into two primary sections: the first half takes place in Gondo’s luxury home, orchestrated like a stage play as the characters are developed and the plan takes hold. The second part of the film follows the police, under the leadership of Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai), as they hit the streets of the seedier side of Yokohama in search of the kidnappers. Known in Japan as Tengoku to Jigoku, which translates as Heaven and Hell, High and Low is an expert noir, a subtle masterpiece that tackles numerous socioeconomic and cultural issues as Gondo weighs the fate of his business against the fate of a small child; it all manages to feel as fresh and relevant today as it probably did back in the ’60s.

Kingo Gondo (Toshirō Mifune) has some tough decisions to make in HIGH AND LOW

High and Low is screening on October 18 at 7:00 at Japan Society, kicking off the first section of the monthly tribute series “Richie’s Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda,” which honors Ohio-born writer, critic, scholar, curator, and filmmaker Donald Richie, who died in February at the age of eighty-eight. Richie was a tireless champion of Japanese culture and, particularly, cinema, and the series features six works by five of his favorite directors. Richie called High and Low, which will be introduced by series curator Kyoko Hirano and followed by a reception, “a morality play in the form of an exciting thriller. A self-made man (Mifune) is ruined by a jealous nobody ([Tsutomu] Yamazaki in his first important screen role) but goes on to do the right thing and in the end the camera observes more similarities than differences between the two. With a memorable mid-film climax on a high-speed bullet-train.” The series continues in November with Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu, in December with Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Autumn (screening on Ozu’s birthday, which will also mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death), in January with Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri, and in February with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, appropriately on the one-year anniversary of Richie’s passing. “Thanks to Richie,” Hirano explained in a statement about the festival, “the world knows the greatness of Japanese cinema.”