Tag Archives: japan society

HIKASHU & TOMOE SHINOHARA LIVE IN CONCERT

Makigami Koichi will lead Hikashu in one-night-only special event at Japan Society on May 13

ROCKIN’ EVENING OF J-TECHNO POP
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, May 13, $25, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society will transform its auditorium, usually home to film screenings, theatrical productions, lectures, and experimental dance presentations, into a nonseated club on Friday night for the full-band North American debut of Hikashu, the Japanese avant-garde collective led by vocalist Makigami Koichi (who also plays the bass, cornet, and Theremin). For more than thirty years, Hikashu has been dazzling audiences with its unique melding of musical styles on such records as Natsu (1980), Watashi No Tanoshimi (1984), Humming Soon (1991), and Ikirutoto (2008) and in wild live appearances. For this one-night-only special event, Hikashu, featuring Mita Freeman on guitar and samples, Sakaide Masami on bass and electronics, Shimizu Kazuto on piano, synthesizer, and bass-clarinet, and Sato Masaharu on drums and voice, will be joined by J-pop-culture icon Tomoe (Shinorer) Shinohara and percussionist Steve Eto. Tickets are $25, with half of the sales going to Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund, which to date has taken in more than $6 million.

CONCERT FOR JAPAN

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tickets available beginning Tuesday, March 22, 11:00 am
Event takes place Saturday, April 9, $5-$100, 11:00 am – 11:00 pm
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

As the horrific devastation continues in Japan, people around the world are gathering together to help. Here in New York City, many institutions are holding benefits and donating proceeds to disaster relief. Japan Society has already raised nearly a million and a half dollars, and on April 9 they will host one of the biggest charity events yet, the twelve-hour Concert for Japan. The show centers around two $100 gala blocks, featuring Philip Glass with Hal Willner and the trio of Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and John Zorn at 1:00 and a solo performance by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Bill Laswell with gigi band at 6:00. Admission at other times is only five dollars at the door, first come, first served, with all proceeds going to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. Scheduled to appear are Masayo Ishigure, Mutsumi and Masumi Takamizu, James Schlefer, Sadahiro Kakitani, Taikoza, Taka Kigawa, and Yumi Kurosawa playing traditional Japanese instruments and music, in addition to such bands as Echostream, Hard Nips, the Suzan, and Me & Mars, with many more to be announced. There will also be special activities all day long, including ticketed classes in basic Japanese, origami, and calligraphy, Kamishibai storytelling, and the splendid new exhibit “Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven & Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art” will be open until 8:00. Tickets for the gala blocks and classes go on sale this morning at 11:00 am, limited to two per person. They’ll go quickly, so don’t hesitate to help while seeing a great show as a bonus.

HARDEST MEN IN TOWN: DEAD OR ALIVE

Takashi Miike’s 1999 film DEAD OR ALIVE will be shown at Japan Society on March 15 as part of Yakuza series

YAKUZA CHRONICLES OF SIN, SEX & VIOLENCE: DEAD OR ALIVE (Takashi Miike, 1999)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tuesday, March 15, $12, 7:30
Series runs through March 19
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

In Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive, the ultracool beginning and unforgettably bizarre ending are awesome; unfortunately, the long middle section lacks the excitement and originality of many of his other crime films, from Ley Lines (1999) and City of Lost Souls (2000) to Ichi the Killer (2001) and Izo (2004). The DVD comes with the following warning: “This motion picture contains explicit portrayals of violence; sex; violent sex; sexual violence; clowns and violent scenes of violent excess, which are definitely not suitable for all audiences…. Enjoy at your own risk.” Dead or Alive lives up to its billing with plenty of drugs, sex, violence, blood, gluttony, stabbings, shootings, chopsticks, strippers, sunglasses, sin, sloth, Russian roulette, betrayal, Yakuza battles, explosions, revenge, feces, vomit, communism, cops and robbers, and, yes, clowns. Miike also explores complex relationships among fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, and siblings while delving into one of his most common cross-cultural themes, as Chinese triad boss Ryūichi (Riki Takeuchi) and Japanese detective Jojima (Show Aikawa) prepare for the ultimate showdown. The first of a conceptual trilogy that continues with Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000) and Dead or Alive: Final (2002), Dead or Alive is screening March 15 at Japan Society as part of the Globus Film Series “Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence” and will be introduced by Miike, who is in town for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s awesome retrospective “Shinjuku Outlaw: 13 from Takashi Miike.” [Ed. note: Takashi Miike has had to cancel all upcoming New York City appearances because of the catastrophic events occurring in Japan.]

HARDEST MEN IN TOWN: YAKUZA CHRONICLES OF SIN, SEX & VIOLENCE

Robert Mitchum film kicks off Japan Society Yakuza series

THE YAKUZA (Sidney Pollack, 1975)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Wednesday, March 9, $12, 7:30
Series runs March 9-19
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

One of Hollywood’s first forays into the Japanese underworld has quite a pedigree — directed by Sydney Pollack (coming off his success with The Way We Were) and written by Robert Towne (who had just scribed Chinatown and Shampoo) and Paul Schrader (his first writing credit, to be followed by Taxi Driver). The great Robert Mitchum stars as Harry Kilmer, a WWII vet who returns to Japan thirty years later to help his friend George Tanner (Brian Family Affair Keith), whose daughter has been kidnapped. Kilmer thinks he can just walk in and walk out, but things quickly get complicated, and he ends up having to take care of some unfinished business involving the great Keiko Kishi (The Twilight Samurai). Kilmer and his trigger-happy young cohort, Dusty (Richard Logan’s Run Jordan), hole up at Oliver’s (Herb “Murray the Cop” Edelman), where they are joined by Tanaka (Ken Takakura) in their battle against Toshiro Tono (Eiji Hiroshima Mon Amour Okada) and Goro (James Flower Drum Song Shigeta) while searching for a man with a spider tattoo on his head. There are lots of shootouts and sword fights, discussions of honor and betrayal, and, in the grand Yakuza tradition, the ritual cutting off of the pinkie. The Yakuza kicks off the Globus Film Series “Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence” on March 9 and will be followed by a Q&A with Schrader.

Takashi Miike will be at Japan Society on March 15 to introduce his 1999 Yakuza film, DEAD OR ALIVE

The series continues March 10 with the U.S. premiere of Onibi: The Fire Within (Rokuro Mochizuki, 1997), which will feature an introduction and lecture by Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice. On March 11, the screening of The Wolves (Hideo Gosha, 1971) will be followed by a Gangsta Party with High Teen Boogie. March 12 is “Honor Amongst Ruffians Saturday or: The Films You’ll Never Ever Find on DVD . . . Ever,” including the international premieres of The Walls of Abashiri Prison (Pt 3): Longing for Home (Teruo Ishii, 1965) and Brutal Tales of Chivalry (Kiyoshi Saeki, 1965), while March 13 is “A Dog-Eat-Dog World Sunday,” with screenings of three films, including Youth of the Beast (Seijun Suzuki, 1963). On March 15, the great one himself, Takashi Miike, in town for a five-day retrospective at Lincoln Center, will introduce his apocalyptic Dead or Alive (1999).The series concludes on March 19 with the New York premiere of Takeshi Kitano’s 2010 Yakuza thriller, Outrage: The Way of the Modern Yakuza. If you’ve never seen a Yakuza movie, you’re in for a treat. No mere ripoff of American gangster pictures, Yakuza films focus on a whole different level of honor and betrayal, violence and revenge.

BYE BYE KITTY!!! BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL IN CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE ART

Makoto Aida, “Ash Color Mountains,” detail, acrylic on canvas, 2009-10 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Through Sunday, June 12 (closed Monday)
Admission: $15 (free Friday from 6:00 to 9:00)
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.byebyekittyart.org

There’s only one week left before Japan Society’s engaging exhibit “Bye Bye Kitty!!!” goes bye-bye, so we highly recommend you do what you can to say hello before it leaves. (Sorry, we were trying to be cute.) Subtitled “Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art,” the small but insightful show offers an alternative take on the cute kawaii and otaku culture that has been so prevalent in Japanese youth over the last few decades. “Bye Bye Kitty!!!” exposes the underside, if not quite dark underbelly, of that groovy scene with a collection of installation, videos, photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculpture that are often cute in their own way — until you look a little deeper. Makoto Aida’s “Harakiri School Girls” sets the tone for the exhibition, mimicking the charming covers found on Japanese manga but upon further examination focuses on a young girl with a samurai sword decapitating her schoolmates. Aida’s massive “Ash Color Mountains” wall painting is composed of hundreds of faceless, dead salarymen jumbled together (along with Wall-E and Waldo). Playing off the “Famous Views of Kyoto” paintings by Hiroshige, Yamaguchi Akira populates his “Narita International Airport” pen and watercolors with scenes of impending environmental disaster. Chiharu Shiota takes that most beautiful and representational of objects, a white wedding dress, and inserts multiple tubes coming out of it, extracting blood that continuously pumps through them, commenting on femininity, tradition, and virginity.

Chiharu Shiota, “Dialogue with Absence,” painted wedding dress, peristaltic pumps, transparent plastic tubing, dyed water, 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tomoko Shioyasu’s “Vortex” is an ultra-delicate cut-paper installation that hangs in the center of one gallery room, casting wild, intense shadows behind it. Miwa Yanagi’s “My Grandmothers” photos stage scenes where a group of Japanese women think they will be fifty years in the future, not necessarily predicting what would be considered a happy, normal life. Tomoko Yoneda’s simple yet evocative photos depict a location in Seoul that was used as a Japanese military hospital in the first half of the twentieth century and a place for interrogation and torture in the 1970s. The most exquisite pieces in the show come from Manabu Ikeda, whose three heavily detailed pen and acrylic ink drawings are awe-insipring and breathtaking, with “Existence” celebrating life, “History of Rise and Fall” mired in death and destruction, and “Ark” not exactly offering the way to a better world; be sure to spend plenty of time examining the myriad amazing intricacies of this fascinating series. Divided into three sections, “Critical Memory,” “Threatened Nature,” and “Unquiet Dream,” the exhibit also features works by Tomoko Kashiki, Rinko Kawauchi, Haruka Kōjin, Kumi Machida, Kohei Nawa, Motohiko Odani, Hiraki Sawa, Hisashi Tenmyouya, and Yoshitomo Nara, who says good-bye with a fitting farewell.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE SHOWCASE: JAPAN + EAST ASIA

Ku & Dancers (©You-Wei Chen), Ahn Ae-soon Dance Company (©LG Arts Center), and Maki Morishita (© Satoshi Watanabe) will all be part of annual Japan Society showcase

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, January 7, and Saturday, January 8, $23, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

All year long, Japan Society presents outstanding dance programs, primarily by Japanese and Japanese-American companies. But every January, they kick off the calendar with its highly anticipated Contemporay Dance Showcase, bringing together groups from throughout the Far East. The fourteenth annual two-day festival is scheduled for January 7-8, with another impressive roster of participants. Tokyo-based choreographer Ryohei Kondo, who leads the Condors, will be joined by J-pop star Miu Sakamoto, the progeny of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Akiko Yano, and a group of dancers for GOATS BLOCK THE ROAD, PART III: GOAT STAMPEDE. Japanese choreographer Maki Morishita specializes in solo dances, having toured with such works as DEBUTANTE, KOSHITSU (PRIVATE ROOM), and KOMA-INU-ILLUTSKY. For the Japan Society showcase, she will present the U.S. premiere of her latest solo piece, TOKYO FLAT. Seoul-based Ahn Ae-soon Dance Company brings a multitude of styles and forms to BUL-SSANG (PITY), which investigates Korea’s cultural identity through Buddhist imagery, incorporating Indian kathak, Korean Jindo drum dancing, Chinese martial arts, and Mongolian and Japanese traditional movement, along with contributions from DJ Soulscape and Pop artist Choi Jeongohwa. Taiwanese dancer, teacher, and choreographer Yu Yen-Fang will conclude the program with FROM HERE . . . TO THE END OF THE RAINBOW, described as an “endearingly oddball and intimate male-female duet.” (While at Japan Society, don’t miss Lewis Hyde and Max Gimblett’s “oxherding,” on view in the downstairs lobby gallery.)

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND: PAINTINGS AND CALLIGRAPHY BY ZEN MASTER HAKUIN

Hakuin Ekaku, “Two Blind Men on a Bridge,” ink on paper (Man’yo-an Collection)

Japan Society Gallery
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Through January 9, $10-$12, free Friday from 6:00 to 9:00
212-832-1155
www.japansociety.org

One of the current New York City exhibitions most deserving of applause is also one of the most contemplative ones, sparking a quiet awe and fascinaton from those who experience its subtle wonder. “The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin,” at Japan Society thorugh January 9, features sixty-nine scroll paintings by artist and teacher Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), made primarily for his students, lay followers, and other monks as teaching tools, never for sale. Able to create marvelous scenes with an intuitive economy of line, Hakuin displays a sly sense of humor and a deep understanding of human behavior in his works. The centerpiece is “Hotei’s Sound of One Hand,” a depiction of Hakuin’s favorite subject, the wandering monk Hotei, sitting in a meditative position, one hand raised, asking what has since become one of the great existential questions, the famous koan, “What is the sound of one hand [clapping]?” Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, is surrounded by such sayings as “Young shop-clerks, no matter what you say / if you don’t hear the sound of one hand, it’s all rubbish!” Hakuin also shows Hotei playing kickball, juggling while spinning a plate from his chin, watching sumo mice, and transformed into a kite. “Hakuin’s Hotei paintings demonstrate that Zen is not an unfathomable discipline restricted to a few determined monastics, but a lively force available to everyone in every daily activity,” writes cocurator Stephen Addiss in his essay “Hotei as Everyman” in the gorgeous exhibition catalog (Shambhala, $65), which also features such chapters as “Life in Art, Art in Life,” “Buddhist, Shinto, and Folk Deities,” and “Confucian Themes and Painting-Calligraphy Interactions.” Hakuin’s immense skill and humble nature are also evident in such works as “Monkey and Cuckoo,” “Sixth Patriarch’s Rice Mill,” “Ant on a Grindstone,” “Two Blind Men on a Bridge,” and “Daruma’s Shoe,” ink-on-paper scroll paintings imbued with both mystery and meaning but never overladen with heavy messages. As you make your way through “The Sound of One Hand,” you’ll continually want to stop and applaud — and break out into laughter — but instead, slowly breathe in its quiet splendor and unending charm in silence, evoking the sound of one hand. (On December 12 and January 8 at 11:00 am, Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara of Village Zendo will lead a discussion about Hakuin, followed by a meditation; tickets are $25 and include admission to the gallery. While at Japan Society, also be sure to go downstairs to see the free exhibition “oxherding,” an extraordinary collaboration between painter Max Gimblett and writer and translator Lewis Hyde.)