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FROM HERE TO THERE: PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

Aki Sasamoto will present three live, collaborative, improvisational performances from Japan Society as part of online exhibition

Who: Nobutaka Aozaki, Hanako Murakami, Aki Sasamoto, Daisy Nam, Felipe Arturo, Kyle Dancewicz, more
What: Livestream performances and artist Q&As
Where: Japan Society online
When: October 22 – December 17, $10 per program ($40 for all exhibition-related programs), 6:00
Why: On September 24, Japan Society unveiled its first virtual exhibition, in response to the pandemic lockdown resulting from the coronavirus crisis. On view through January 21, “From Here to There” consists of three visual artists taking on isolation and community, the physical versus the digital, and issues of control and agency. The works will evolve over time and take the audience behind the scenes of their progress. New York-based Nobutaka Aozaki is maintaining a conceptual map of found items and ground-floor businesses along Broadway. In Imaginary Landscapes, Paris-based Hanako Murakami repurposes vintage film and photographic plates and paper to explore the nature of memory (followed by “Palpebra” on October 22, “Film Reels” on November 19, and “Magic Lantern” on December 17).

And New York-based Aki Sasamoto is staging, with collaborators from the Yale School of Art, three livestreamed performances and Q&As from Japan Society, on October 22 with Armando Cortes, Sae Jun Kim, Erik Nilson, Hyeree Ro, Amina Ross, Audrey Ryan, Jeenho Seo, Pap Souleye, Lucas Yasunaga, Stella Zhong, and moderator Daisy Nam, November 19 with moderator Felipe Arturo, and December 3 with moderator Kyle Dancewicz, all at 6:00. The improvised pieces will reconsider live performance in the age of Covid-19, announcing, “Let’s sing together. Physically transport objects. Think about speech patterns. Throw a workout session.” In addition, Murakami will give a photo processing demonstration from her personal darkroom on November 5 and will speak with Maison Européenne de la Photographie director Simon Baker on January 7, and Aozaki will give an artist talk and gallery walkthrough of his intervention at Japan Society on December 17. You can watch the virtual opening of the exhibit with the artists, gallery director Yukie Kamiya, and assistant curator Tiffany Lambert here.

REIKO YAMADA: SOUND INSTALLATION ON SILENT FILMS

Reiko Yamada will present the virtual world premiere of the Japan Society commission Sound Installation on Silent Films on October 21 (photo © Carolyn Drake)

Who: Reiko Yamada, Yoko Shioya
What: Livestreamed world premiere performance and artist Q&A
Where: Japan Society online
When: Wednesday, October 21, $15, 8:00 (available on demand through November 4)
Why: Japan Society’s virtual 2020-21 Performing Arts Season kicks off with the commissioned world premiere of Hiroshima-born multimedia artist Reiko Yamada’s Sound Installation on Silent Films. On October 21 at 8:00, Japan Society will livestream the prerecorded performance, filmed live in Yamada’s home, in which she accompanies a trio of silent films with music played on broken accordions. “During the pandemic, our everyday lives have been greatly compromised, leaving us at times painfully dependent on the internet for connection. But while some advances in technology take a center stage in this climate, others that changed the world but have since become commonplace — cinema, instantly available music, global transportation — have been halted,” Yamada said in a statement. “The three antique films that I have selected for this concert — a reel of sumo wrestling matches, an almost abstract animation, and a documentary on the history of railroads in Japan – were the new technologies of their day, light entertainments in the truest sense. Recontextualizing these movies as ‘streaming performances’ supported by music provides me a canvas to present our relationship to entertainment over time.”

The performance will be followed by a live Q&A with Japan Society artistic director Yoko Shioya and Yamada, whose other works include the experimental opera Mask Your Sonic Story, the score for the dance piece You Took a Part of Me, the solo exhibition Small Small Things, and the orchestral composition New Shadows in Raw Light of Darkness. “I have an affinity for the accordion, having used it as a primary instrument in past projects,” Yamada, who is currently based in Barcelona, continues. “Though the accordion has no significant role in the history of Japanese silent film, I find the instrument, even (and perhaps especially) in a dilapidated state, can convey a depth of experience and an almost tactile sense of sound. By filtering my performance live through a computer, I can better isolate the unique personality of each instrument. The films that make up this performance were painstakingly digitized, recaptured like butterflies on pins for a modern audience that may find them rendered alien out of context. Much as each frame of these films has been renovated by both analog and digital processing, I will be transforming these nearly nonfunctional accordions into time machines, linking the performance’s many parts across oceans and centuries.” Tickets for the fifty-minute show are $15; the stream will be available through November 4.

VIRTUAL ANNUAL SAKE LECTURE & TASTING: SAKE ETIQUETTE

Sake is on the home menu for Japan Society tasting moving online

Who: Dr. Joshua Walker, Timothy Sullivan
What: Annual Sake Lecture & Tasting
Where: Japan Society YouTube
When: Thursday, June 11, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: Japan Society’s twenty-third annual Sake Lecture & Tasting will be a little different this year, taking place online instead of at the cultural institution’s lovely home on East Forty-Seventh St. The hour-long event will be introduced by Japan Society CEO and president Dr. Joshua Walker; the guest of honor is UrbanSake.com founder and Sake Revolution podcast host Timothy Sullivan, who will be discussing “Sake Etiquette,” from how to pour properly to how to prepare warm sake to how to deal with overflow. You’ll have to supply your own sake; the list of Sullivan’s recommendations can be found here, consisting of thirty sakes from sixteen companies, including Junmai Ginjo “Taisetsu,” Nanbu Bijin Tokubetsu Junmaishu, Dewatsuru Kimoto Junmai-shu, Dewatsuru Sakura Emaki Sparkling, Hoyo “Kura no Hana” Junmai Daiginjo “Fair Maiden,” Okunomatsu Daiginjo Shizukusake 18th Ihei, and Okunomatsu Tokubestu Junmai. Drinking at home has been a popular way to pass the time during the pandemic, so enjoy!

ARCHITECTURAL NEW WAVE: FROM RUINS TO THE FUTURE OF HOUSING

Fuminori Nousaku Architects’ “Holes in the House” is focus of Japan Society discussion (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Fuminori Nousaku, Mio Tsuneyama, Jing Liu
What: Architectural talk
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th St. at First Ave., 212-715-1258
When: Friday, January 17, $15, 5:00
Why: In conjunction with the exhibition “Made in Tokyo: Architecture and Living, 1964/2020,” Japan Society is hosting the talk “Architectural New Wave: From Ruins to the Future of Housing,” featuring Tokyo architects Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama and moderated by SO–IL founder Jing Liu. The discussion will focus on sustainability and adaptive reuse, centering on Fuminori Nousaku Architects’ ongoing project “Holes in the House,” the renovation of a 1980s steel frame warehouse in Nishi, Shinagawa Ward. “Made in Tokyo,” which is curated and designed by Atelier Bow-Wow, continues through January 26, featuring drawings, plans, photography, video, and sculpture that depict the changing urban landscape between the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the upcoming 2020 Games. Among the highlights are Nobuaki Takekawa’s “Cat Olympics: Soccer Field,” Tomoyuki Tanaka’s “Dismantling of Shinjuku Station,” and akihisa hirata’s “nine hours Akasuka, Capsule Hotel.” At 6:00 Friday night, the popular mixer “Escape East @ 333” includes free admission to the galleries with RSVP, a docent-led tour, complimentary snacks, drink specials, and a site-specific installation by Zai Nomura.

UNDER THE RADAR: THE UNKNOWN DANCER IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Dancer-choreographer Wataru Kitao stars in one-man multimedia show at Japan Society (photo by Ryuichiro Suzuki)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 10-14, $35
212-715-1258
Festival continues through January 19
www.japansociety.org
www.hanchuyuei2017.com

Writer-director Suguru Yamamoto returns to Japan Society after the success of his Hanchu-Yuei collective’s 2017 production of Girl X with The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood, a one-man dance-theater piece featuring dancer-choreographer Wataru Kitao. In the ninety-minute show, which is running January 10-14 as part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, the Tokyo-based Yamamoto explores ideas of anonymity, empathy, and death in an abstract urban environment where young people rely on texting to make connections. Kitao, founder of the dance ensemble Baobab, portrays multiple characters of different ages and genders as he moves across a stage with various props, police caution tape, and a back wall onto which text (in Japanese and English), video, and photographs are projected; meanwhile, the lighting shifts from reds, blues, and greens to grays and blacks.

“This is a dance performance and also a play,” the thirty-two-year-old Yamamoto (I Can’t Die without Being Born, Enjoyable Time) says in an Under the Radar promotional video. “The theme is the indifference of people living in a metropolis.” It might have been written about Yamamoto’s experiences in Tokyo, but it should feel right at home here in Gotham, although Yamamoto, who founded Hanchu-Yuei in 2007 and has cited such influences as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Woody Allen, is a bit worried. “I don’t know how such a performance is going to be received by a New York audience, but I hope it will catalyze something interesting.” The January 10 show will be followed by a meet-the-artists reception, while the January 11 show will be followed by an artist Q&A.

TAITEN: NOH & KYOGEN

Noritoshi Yamamoto (right) and members of his prestigious family will perform Kagyu (The Snail) at Japan Society November 14-16 (photo © Yoshiaki Kanda)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
November 14-16, $97, 7:30
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s Emperor Series, celebrating the ascension of Emperor Naruhito to the Chrysanthemum Throne in May, concludes with a special program that includes a noh play created for Emperor Taishō’s ascension to the throne in 1912. In honor of the era turning from Heisei to Reiwa, Kurouemon Katayama X will stage Taiten, portraying the god Amatsukami, wearing a Mikazuki mask as he descends from the heavens for a ritual dance. The work is rarely performed; in mounting the Reiwa version, Kurouemon X was influenced by notes left by his father and grandfather from the 1912 original commission. In addition, Noritoshi Yamamoto and members of his family will perform the comedic kyogen play Kagyu (The Snail), in which a servant is sent to gather up snails but collects a traveling priest instead, thinking it is the shelled gastropod.

The show runs November 14-16, at the same time the succession rites, known as the Daijosai, or the Great Thanksgiving Ceremony, are taking place at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The November 14 performance will be followed by a soirée, and Japan Society will host a noh workshop with actors from the Kyoto Kanze Association on November 15 at 1:00 ($60) and a kyogen workshop with members of the Yamamoto Tojiro Family of the Okura School of Kyogen on November 16 at 1:00 ($60). This is a rare chance to experience these works, so tickets are going fast despite their relatively high cost for a Japan Society event.

COMPOSING FOR THE SUN: A CONVERSATION WITH PHILIP GLASS

Philip Glass will be at Japan Society on November 6 to talk about Akhnaten (photo © Richard Hubert Smith / English National Opera)

Who: Philip Glass, Tom Hare, Anthony Roth Costanzo
What: Conversation, performance, reception
Where: Japan Society, 333 East 47th St. at First Ave., 212-715-1258
When: Wednesday, November 6, $28, 6:30
Why: On November 8, the Met is premiering a new production of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, directed by Phelim McDermott, conducted by Karen Kamensek, and featuring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as the monotheistic title pharaoh and mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges as Nefertiti. On November 6, Japan Society is hosting “Composing for the Sun: A Conversation with Philip Glass,” in which the eighty-two-year-old Glass, whose other operas include Einstein on the Beach, In the Penal Colony, Satyagraha, and The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, will sit down with Princeton professor Tom Hare to talk about the opera; as a bonus, Costanzo will perform an excerpt from the work, and there will be a post-event reception with the artists. Tickets are sold out, but a waitlist will start one hour before the start time. The presentation is part of Japan Society’s Emperor Series, celebrating Emperor Naruhito’s ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne in May.