Tag Archives: japan society

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.”

JAPAN CUTS: THE KIRISHIMA THING

Life is turned upside down and inside out when a high school hero suddenly and unexpectedly disappears in THE KIRISHIMA THING

THE KIRISHIMA THING (Daihachi Yoshida, 2012)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 14, 7:30
Japan Cuts series continues through July 28
212-715-1258
www.subwaycinema.com
www.japansociety.org

Life goes completely out of whack when a massively popular student suddenly and mysteriously disappears in Daihachi Yoshida’s splendid examination of the trials and travails of high school, The Kirishima Thing. With no advance warning, superstar athlete and dreamy stud Kirishima can’t be found, missing class and volleyball practice, thoroughly confusing his friends and teammates. His girlfriend, the beautiful Risa (Mizuki Yamamoto), doesn’t know where he is. Risa’s clique of cool girls, including Sana (Mayu Matsuoka), Mika (Kurumi Shimizu), and Kasumi (Ai Hashimoto), start growing apart. The not extremely talented Koizumi (Taiga) is forced to replace Kirishima on the volleyball team. Aya (Suzuka Ohgo) plays sax on a rooftop while actually spying on her secret crush, the handsome Hiroki (Masahiro Higashide), who is Sana’s girlfriend and Kirishima’s best friend. Another of Kirishima’s friends, Ryuta (Motoki Ochiai), shows up to school with ridiculously curly hair. And Kasumi begins spending more time with nerd-geek Ryoya (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who decides to defy his film teacher by going ahead and making the zombie flick Student Council of the Living Dead. Tensions heat up, fears rise to the surface, and standard hierarchical relationships go significantly off kilter as Kirishima’s unexplained absence affects everyone’s position in high school society and makes them reexamine the purpose of their young lives. Based on the omnibus novel Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo (“Did You Hear Kirishima Quit?”) by Ryo Asai, The Kirishima Thing cleverly deals with genre clichés as Yoshida (Permanent Nobara, The Wonderful World of Captain Kuhio) and cowriter Kohei Kiyasu tackle the myriad issues that face teenagers on a daily basis, evoking both Beckett and Kurosawa through a John Hughes-like lens with scenes that are retold from multiple viewpoints but don’t provide any firm answers. Winner of Best Picture, Best Director, Most Popular Film, and Outstanding Achievement in Editing at the 2013 Japan Academy Prize awards show, The Kirishima Thing is screening July 14 at 7:30 at Japan Society as part of the Japan Cuts series, a copresentation with the New York Asian Film Festival.

JAPAN CUTS: THERMAE ROMAE

Public baths architect Lucius Modestus (Hiroshi Abe) is amazed by what he sees as he travels back and forth through time in THERMAE ROMAE

THERMAE ROMAE (Hideki Takeuchi, 2012)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Sunday, July 14, 5:15
Series runs July 11-21
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Adapted from Mari Yamazaki’s popular manga series, Thermae Romae is a bizarre, hysterical tale about the importance of public baths throughout history. In the year 128, architect Lucius Modestus (Hiroshi Abe) has lost his mojo, losing his job to a youngster with more modern ideas and being hounded by his wife to have greater ambition. Down on his luck, he is contemplating his bleak future when he sees a crack at the bottom of a pool, which sucks him into a contemporary Japanese bath house where a bunch of old men are relaxing. The confused fish out of water is amazed by what he sees, from bottled drinks to a clothing basket, and upon magically returning to Rome, he adds these elements to a new bath design that is a huge hit. Soon, every time he goes into water in Rome, he ends up in Japan, bumping into the adorable Mami Yamakoshi (Aya Ueto) and bringing back more ideas, eventually designing bath houses for Emperor Hadrian (Masachika Ichimura), who believes the public bath is a key way to maintain a good relationship with the common people. But despite his success, Lucius can’t help feeling like a fraud, and things only get more complicated when he gets involved in the political machinations of Rome revolving around Hadrian’s successor, either the dedicated Antoninus (Kai Shishido) or self-obsessed womanizer Ceionius (Kazuki Kitamura). Abe is a riot as Lucius, displaying wonderful deadpan flare as he stands naked in front of men and women, refers to the modern-day folk as a flat-faced tribe, and gazes in wonder at a flush toilet. His trips from Rome to Japan evoke the tunnel in Being John Malkovich, complete with appropriately goofy special effects. Writer Shōgo Mutō and director Hideki Takeuchi keep things moving at a playful pace, celebrating social interaction as well as potential romance, complete with a fun Greek chorus of Japanese bath lovers. A sequel has just come out in Japan, but you can catch the first film on July 14 at 5:15 as part of the annual “Japan Cuts” series at Japan Society, which runs July 11-21 and includes such other works as Takashi Miike’s Lesson of the Evil, Yukihiro Toda’s There Is Light, Yuki Tanada’s The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky, Mika Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter, and Keishi Otomo’s Rurouni Kenshin, many of which are copresentations with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New York Asian Film Festival.

SANBASO, DIVINE DANCE

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
March 28-29, $30-$50
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

In conjunction with the major Guggenheim exhibition “Gutai: Splendid Playground,” which continues through May 8, the museum is teaming up with Japan Society to present the North American premiere of Sanbaso, divine dance, taking place in the rotunda of the Frank Lloyd Wright building March 28 at 2:00 and 8:00 and March 29 at 8:00. The ancient celebratory ritual dance will feature Kyogen actor Mansai Nomura (Onmyoji, Ran) as the title character, joined by five noh musicians and three noh chanters, with the set and costumes designed by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto based on his recent “Lightning Fields” series of photographs. “It is believed that the roots of Sanbaso lie in the myth of Amaterasu-omikami, the goddess of the sun, who hid in the heavenly rock cave Ama-no-Iwato,” Sugimoto explained in a statement. “This performance expresses how the gods descend to earth and is regarded as the most important performance piece among all the Shinto rituals. . . . The audience of this performance will witness the gods’ presence even in these jaded modern times.” This special program, a tribute to Gutai avant-garde artist Shiraga Kazuo’s Ultramodern Sanbasō, which opened the seminal “Gutai Art on Stage” presentation in 1957, is sold out, but there will be a standby line, with each person allowed to buy one ticket if any become available. In addition, on March 26, Japan Society will host a screening of Yuko Nakamura’s 2012 documentary Memories of Origin — Hiroshi Sugimoto, which follows Sugimoto around the world and includes appearances by architect Tadao Ando, artist Lee Ufan, critic and curator Akira Asada, and actor Mansai Nomura; Sugimoto will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A afterward.

Striking production of SANBASO, DIVINE DANCE lights up the Guggenheim (photo by Enid Alvarez; © 2013 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)

Update: Slow and steady, performed with split-second timing, Sanbaso, divine dance is a striking piece, a highly stylized, precisely choreographed combination of music, vocalization, movement, architecture, and design, beautifully tailored to its surroundings in the Guggenheim rotunda. The mesmerizing performance begins with a noh music medley featuring drums and flute, a traditional sonic introduction that sets the mood for what follows. After the trio of musicians departs, the full cast enters, with Kazunori Takano as Senzai, Haruo Tsukizaki as Koken, and kyogen star Mansai Nomura as the title character, along with a slightly larger group of musicians and vocalists. They all proceed slowly down the spiral from the Guggenheim’s second floor, emerging from behind one of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s lightning-themed curtains and winding their way to the bare stage, which stands about three feet off the ground. As the musicians play — the earlier trio of Rokurobyoe Fujita on fue (flute), Atsushi Ueda on ko-tsuzumi (small hand drum), and Keinosuke Okura on o-tsuzumi (large hand drum) is joined by Yotaro Uzawa on ko-tsuzumi (lead hand drum), Kensaku Araki on waki-tsuzumi (second small hand drum), and a ji-utai (chorus) of Ren Naito, Hiroharu Fukata, and Shuichi Nakamura — a ritual takes place in which the senzai is presented with gold hand chimes, known as suzu, from a box held by the koken. Soon Sanbaso approaches the koken and is given a small, dark mask of an old man’s face that he puts on, then starts taking loud steps and shaking the chimes in unison with the drummers. Flashing his lightning-patterned blue robe designed by Sugimoto, he stops, jerks his head, then lifts and brings down a heavy foot, creating an echo that reverberates throughout the Guggenheim. Nomura is also wearing a tall, dark hat — similar to the one he wore in the two fantastical Onymoji films — that reflects light and the late Motonaga Sadamasa’s water tubes, which arc across the museum, in such a way that it looks like bolts of lightning are streaking down it. At times, Nomura’s foot stomps are like thunder, matching Rie Ono’s lighting that makes the bolts on Sugimoto’s curtains come alive, as if a storm has suddenly arrived. Having honored the gods, Sanbaso returns the mask and chimes to the koken, and the company prepares for the finale, after which they go back up the winding Guggenheim ramp and disappear behind the lightning curtains. It’s nearly impossible to take your eyes off Nomura, who inhabits his role like it’s part of his soul. He even adds a final flourish as he accepts the accolades of the delighted audience, which on Thursday night included Sugimoto as well as Cai Guo-Qiang, whose stunning “I Want to Believe” exhibition filled the Guggenheim five years ago.