Justin’s Japan: Nippon in New York — Karaoke Networking, Poisson Piano and ‘Cutie and the Boxer’
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The award-winning documentary Cutie and the Boxer premieres at Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark Sunshine Cinema Aug. 16. (RADiUS-TWC)
By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his Japanese culture page here for related stories.
In the dog days of summer, it’s best to escape the heat in a place that’s cozy and cool. For those into Japanese cultural events, this month offers a diverse selection of music, film premieres and parties—all in the comfort of indoor air conditioning.
This month’s highlights include:
Thursday, Aug. 1, 7:30 p.m.
Young Professionals 2nd Annual Midsummer Matsuri and Karaoke Party
Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street
$10 for corporate and individual members, $15 for non-members
Japan Society’s Young Professionals events provide the opportunity for emerging business leaders from the U.S. and Japan (aged 25-45) to meet people with similar interests, experience programming on timely topics, and network with their peers. Attendees are invited to join for a night of networking, singing, eating and drinking featuring singer and Japanese TV personality Alex York as MC! Yukata and other summer attire are welcome, and admission includes light Japanese food and one drink ticket, cash bar thereafter. Space is limited; for advance registration email youngpro@japansociety.org or call 212-715-1219.
Saturday, Aug. 3, 7:00 p.m.
Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue
$35 members/students/seniors, $40 nonmembers
As part of the closing night presentation of the 36th Asian American International Film Festival, this screening of Our Homeland includes a Q&A with the director followed by an awards ceremony and gala reception featuring chef’s tasting tables and open bar with specialty cocktails sponsored by Rémy Martin. Sent decades ago as a child to North Korea under a repatriation program, Sungho returns to Japan for a temporary medical visit. A wrenching human drama unfolds as his family grapples with why he was ever let go. Under the constant surveillance by an accompanying North Korean official, Sungho and his family reunite again in this sensitive tale inspired by Korean-Japanese director Yang Yonghi’s true family story. Capturing the tender feelings of separation, memory, and belonging, the film also provides a rare glimpse into the life of ethnic Koreans in Japan. Presented in Japanese and Korean with English subtitles.
Friday, Aug. 16
Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark Sunshine Cinema
$13, $13.50
Winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and a hit at film festivals around the world, this candid New York story explores the chaotic 40-year marriage of renowned “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara and his artist wife, Noriko. As a rowdy, confrontational young artist in Tokyo, Ushio seemed destined for fame, but met with little commercial success after he moved to New York City in 1969, seeking international recognition. When 19-year-old Noriko moved to New York to study art, she fell in love with Ushio—abandoning her education to become the wife and assistant to an unruly, husband. Over the course of their marriage, the roles have shifted. Now 80, Ushio struggles to establish his artistic legacy, while Noriko is at last being recognized for her own art—a series of drawings entitled “Cutie,” depicting her challenging past with Ushio. Spanning four decades, the film is a moving portrait of a couple wrestling with the eternal themes of sacrifice, disappointment and aging, against a background of lives dedicated to art.
For the complete story, click here.
Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan premieres in New York July 28. For more information, click here.
By Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03) for JQ magazine. Stacy is a professional Japanese writer/interpreter/translator. She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations in the periodic series WITLife.
This weekend the annual Asian American International Film Festival will screen the new documentary Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan (the title being the Romanization of “half” in Japanese), made by filmmakers Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Takagi and. Both half Japanese themselves, these women were inspired to undertake this project due to the lack of media attention on hafus and frustration with the shallow adoration of hafu celebrities on Japanese television.
The film begins with some informative statistics, such as that 2% of Japan’s population is foreign born and a striking 1 out of 49 babies is born to a family with a non-Japanese parent. These numbers have grown greatly over the last 30 years, and yet Japan is still lacking in its understanding of this diverse populace. Hafu features five half Japanese subjects, and their struggles and successes living in Japan today.
One of the families profiled is comprised of a Japanese father and a Mexican mother, who met while studying abroad in the U.S. They later married and now live in Nagoya with their two children. The older one, nine-year-old Alex, is having a hard time at his local school as the other kids tease him for being “English.” Alex’s parents believe that he needs a change in environment and decide to transfer him to an international school. He asks to spend some time in Mexico before the transition, and comes back from this trip brimming with confidence and an easing of the stutter that plagued him when he was being bullied (which his teachers had turned a blind eye to). Alex goes on to love his new school, make friends, and feel comfortable in his own skin without having to worry about being hafu.
JQ Magazine: Citizens of the Bay Area, Film Buffs, and Lovers of All Things Japanese, Lend Me Your Ears!
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Catch the U.S. premiere of Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo as part of NEW PEOPLE’s fifth annual J-POP Summit beginning July 27. (© khara. Licensed by FUNimation Productions, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.)
By Preston Hatfield (Yamanashi-ken, 2009-10) for JQ magazine. Preston received a BA in English literature with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in Japanese at the University of California, Davis. After spending an amazing year on JET in Yamanashi, he spent a year writing and interning with book publishing companies in New York. He currently lives in Marin County, where he continues to cover local Japan-related stories for JQ, and teaches English as a second language at an international school in San Francisco.
Mark your calendars for the weekend of July 27 when NEW PEOPLE and the San Francisco Japantown Merchants Association kick off the fifth annual J-POP Summit. With a special thematic focus on the kawaii phenomenon, this extravaganza promises to be bigger and better than the last one (not unlike the stages of an RPG boss fight).
“Each year we strive to present a comprehensive cross-section of the latest in hot J-POP trends across fashion, film, art, music, anime/manga and pop culture that are happening in Japan NOW!” says event publicist Erik Jansen, who has been promoting the event since the beginning.
The weekend at NEW PEOPLE and Union Square promises a spectacular showcase of live music. In addition to performances by iconic pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and LoVendoR, the new band featuring former Morning Musume star Reina Tanaka, you’ll also have the chance to hear Kylee, an American-born teenage singer whose stock has been rising steadily in the pop music scene. In case you’re worried if all that cutesy music is going to turn your brain to pudding, rest assured that a punk rock show by the Akabane Vulgars and Daichi’s beat boxing and vocal mix mastery will sculpt it back to its normal Jell-O consistency.
And if music isn’t your thing? “We always receive a wide variety of attendees, from ages 7 to 75 and from across all walks of life,” Jansen promises, and this year there will also be an array of other events, including a Harajuku-inspired fashion show, a Pop Gourmet food festival, a sake tasting hosted by the Japanese Consul General of San Francisco, a rebooted edition of the Real Escape Game, the Vocaloid Dance Contest and a full lineup of special guests including guest of honor Katsuya Terada, one of Japan’s greatest illustrators, who will be doing freehand drawings and signing autographs to promote his new art book at the Kinokuniya bookstore.
Justin’s Japan: Japan Society Serves Up Summer Film Festival
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By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Shukan NY Seikatsu. Visit his Examiner.com Japanese culture page here for related stories.
Summer’s here, and that means a new season of JAPAN CUTS: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema, running at Japan Society from July 11-21.
Now in its seventh year, JAPAN CUTS offers 25 titles, all of which are a mix of New York, U.S. and International premieres. Highlights include the smash-hit samurai blockbuster Rurouni Kenshin, the multi-Japan Academy Prize-winning The Kirishima Thing, and the latest horror film from Takashi Miike, Lesson of the Evil.
“In contrast with the past few years, the selection of titles for JAPAN CUTS is much leaner, and more focused on art house productions and film oddities, though there is still a number of ‘mainstream’ crowd-pleasers in the lineup,” says Japan Society’s chief film programmer Samuel Jamier. “Rather than a ‘best-of’ list, this year’s crop brings a block of dark matter, and provides an unblinking look at the dark side of Japan.”
Co-presented with the New York Asian Film Festival (which itself is now in its 12th year), JAPAN CUTS has attracted over 30,000 filmgoers and presented over 150 feature films—many never before seen in the U.S.—as well as a number of panels, post-screening parties, and exclusive Q&As with filmmakers and actors. Past guests have included Koji Yakusho, Masami Nagasawa, and Sora Aoi.
For a complete listing of films and appearances, visit www.japansociety.org/japan-cuts-2013.
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘From Postwar to Postmodern, Art in Japan 1945-1989: Primary Documents’
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“What emerges from the multitude of ideas here is that art in Japan from this period is a visual record of repercussions that are still being felt today.” (Duke University Press)
By Jessica Sattell (Fukuoka-ken, 2007-08) for JQ magazine. Jessica is a freelance writer and a graduate student in arts journalism. She was previously the publicist for Japan-focused publishers Stone Bridge Press and Chin Music Press.
The abstract and avant-garde sculptor, painter and all-around revolutionary Japanese artist Tarō Okamoto famously said, “Art is an explostion” (geijutsu wa bakuhatsu da).
“Explosive” barely describes the energy and innovation in Japanese art in the latter half of the twentieth century. As From Postwar to Postmodern, Art in Japan 1945-1989: Primary Documents discusses, the decades between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War marked an intensely fruitful period of groundbreaking creativity in Japan. The excitement, anxiety, and electricity that surged against the rigidity of old structures propelled Japanese art and artists into a much greater international conversation.
Published earlier this year by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and distributed by Duke University Press, this hefty tome accompanied the fall 2012-winter 2013 MoMA exhibition Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant Garde. There’s been a huge wave of both popular and scholarly interest in Japanese modern and contemporary art and dozens of high-profile shows at major North American museums and galleries, but the MoMA exhibit was the first to examine the “postwar” period that had been previously underrepresented. Part of this may be that the term “postwar” is tricky to define; the effects of WWII are undoubtedly still felt today and many argue that Japan is still “postwar.”
This book provides a solid foundation for an exploration of the issues and precedents leading up to the transformation of “postwar” art into the “postmodern” time. But, rather than simply rehash existing scholarship about Japanese history from 1945-1989, the book’s co-editors allow the artists, philosophers, critics and curators of this historical time to speak for themselves. The bulk of From Postwar to Postmodern includes a huge and multifaceted collection of primary source materials—personal essays, artist statements, interviews, magazine articles, interviews, critiques and manifestos—many of which have been translated into English for the very first time.
Justin’s Japan: Nippon in New York — JAPAN CUTS, Lincoln Center and Aerosmith Rock the Rising Sun
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Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story premieres at Japan Society in New York July 16 as part of their annual JAPAN CUTS summer film festival. (© 2012 Global Film Network. All rights reserved.)
By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his Japanese culture page here for related stories.
After you’ve seen the outdoor fireworks, enjoy some summer events in the cool indoors, whether it’s catching one of 20 films in Japan Society‘s annual festival or firing up the newest home video release from Aerosmith that documents the band’s triumphant return to Japan following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
This month’s highlights include:
July 11-21
Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street
$12 general/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students. I’M FLASH! prices $15 general/$12 Japan Society members
Now in its seventh season, with 10 days of screenings and over 20 titles, JAPAN CUTS 2013 presents the roughest, sharpest, and smoothest of today’s cutting-edge Japanese film scene, encompassing bigger-than-life blockbusters, high-concept art house titles, moving and provoking documentaries, delirious rom-coms, refined melodramas and a handful of UFOs—unidentified film objects. Dovetailing with the New York Asian Film Festival, this year’s highlights include the smash-hit samurai blockbuster Rurouni Kenshin; Eiki Takahashi’s absorbing glimpse into the glitzy world of Japanese pop music, DOCUMENTARY OF AKB48: Show Must Go On; the winner of the 36th Japan Academy Prize for Best Picture and Best Director, The Kirishima Thing; plus the new film from the wildly prolific auteur Takashi Miike, the psycho killer-teacher horror film Lesson of the Evil, a return to the director’s signature gonzo schlockmeister approach.
July 18-20
Lincoln Center Festival presents Matsukaze
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, 524 West 59th Street
$35-$75
Harmonious sounds and haunting songs converge in this exquisite production of Matsukaze (Japanese for “wind in the pines”). Inspired by a popular 15th-century play crafted in part by Noh master Zeami, the opera features a spare, ethereal score by Toshio Hosokawa, one of Japan’s most prominent living composers of contemporary classical music. Matsukaze tells the story of two sisters, two lingering spirits, who wander the porous boundary of the living and the dead in hopes of being freed from a former mortal lover. John Kennedy conducts the Talea Ensemble and a cast of soloists and chorus in this arresting, dreamlike performance set in the shadowy place where the wall between the ephemeral and the corporeal disappears. Sung in German with English supertitles.
For the complete story, click here.
JQ Magazine: Film Review – JAPAN CUTS 2013 at Japan Society
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Dreams for Sale premieres July 13 at Japan Society in New York as part of their annual JAPAN CUTS film festival. (© 2012 Dreams for Sale Film Partners)
By Lyle Sylvander (Yokohama-shi, 2001-02) for JQ magazine. Lyle is entering a master’s program at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (MIA 2013) and has been writing for the JET Alumni Association since 2004. He is also the goalkeeper for FC Japan, a New York City-based soccer team.
Now in its seventh season, the JAPAN CUTS 2013 film festival runs from July 11-21 at Japan Society in New York and features less mainstream and more art house fare than in festivals past. JQ was able to screen three films from this year’s festival: Dreams for Sale (Yume Uru Futari), Helter Skelter (Heruta Sukeruta) and A Story of Yonosuke (Yokomichi Yonosuke).
Dreams for Sale, the most affecting of the three, tells the story of a young couple, Kanya (Sadao Abe) and Satoko (Takako Matsu), who find themselves in dire straits when their restaurant burns down to the ground. They soon realize, however, that the situation allows them to seek sympathy and romance money out of lonely singles that they encounter. This morality tale is directed in a naturalistic style by Miwa Nishiwaka. Within the director’s moving frame, the two main protagonists are allowed to express themselves both fully and in nuance as they work in tandem to bilk yen out of the unsuspecting victims.
What makes the film work so well is Nishikawa’s matter-of-fact stylistic depiction; she simply allows events to unfold naturally as the camera unobtrusively records them. At first, Kanya and Satoko’s cynical schemes have a darkly comic undertone, but gradually we, as the audience, begin to see the subtle changes that the couple undergoes as they begin to first doubt the morality of what they are doing and then doubt the strength of their own marriage and relationship. As in many great tragedies, this inner turmoil spills out into the external world as their actions have unpredictable repercussions beyond their control and affect unintended innocent victims.
Justin’s Japan: Cheap Trick Brings Budokan to the Bowery
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By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Shukan NY Seikatsu. Visit his Examiner.com Japanese culture page here for related stories.
On April 28, legendary American rockers Cheap Trick played an invitation only, packed to the gills performance at the John Varvatos boutique in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The occasion: a tuneful recreation of the band’s debut concert at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan arena, 35 years to the day of that historic gig.
Originally recorded for a Japan-only live album (where the band enjoyed a Beatles-like following at the time), Cheap Trick at Budokan was released in the U.S. the following year, igniting the band’s popularity at home. It remains their best-selling album at over three million copies sold, and hits like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender” remain classic rock staples.
Held at the former site of another storied rock venue, CBGB, and hosted by Varvatos himself, Cheap Trick was in fine form throughout the 90-minute set. Sponsored by Sony, the entire show was professionally filmed and posted on Livestream.com. Original members Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander and Tom Petersson (with Nielsen’s son Daxx providing the beat) still continue to radiate the energy, chemistry and charisma that make them one of the best live acts among their ’70s peers.
New Yorkers can enjoy Cheap Trick’s next area performance for free on July 12 as part of the Seaside Summer Concert Series at Coney Island. For more information, visit www.cheaptrick.com.
JQ Magazine: Annual Japanese Summer Festival Heats Up Tampa
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New JETs, JET alumni, and Consul Hayato Nakamura and family at Natsu Matsuri, Tampa, June 2013. (Amanda Bailey)
By Bahia Simons-Lane (Gunma-ken, 2005-07) for JQ magazine. Bahia is the president of the Florida JET Alumni Association.
Summer is a time when those of us who lived in Japan begin to feel nostalgic for the matsuri of our adopted home. In spite of the heat, the summer festivals of Japan were perfect little Japanese moments—just thinking about them brings the taste of yakisoba and takoyaki to your tongue. Sadly, these memories are fleeting.
It’s right around this time of year that the annual Tampa Natsu Matsuri is scheduled, which is why for the past three years I have packed up my car in Miami and embarked on the four hour drive north to help out. Tampa’s Natsu Matsuri provides a chance for newly recruited JETs, JET alumni, friends of JET, and members of the Japanese community in Florida to get together and enjoy the traditional Japanese summer festival experience, while also sharing Japanese culture with Florida residents who may not know much about Japan.
As the brainchild of Florida JETAA’s Tampa regional representative John McGee (Nagano-ken, 2004-05), the festival launched in 2006. Now attracting hundreds of people, Tampa Natsu Matsuri grows annually, with more booths and attendees each year. For this summer’s event, which was held on June 15, I was very excited about our new location at Christ the King Catholic Church, which gives the festival more space to grow, and provides an outdoor area with covering and lights in case of inclement weather. The festival itself features Japanese games for kids, such as kingyo sukui (goldfish scoop), Japanese culture demonstrations, and sales of Japanese food and goods. The okonomiyaki is always a hit, and this year a few food trucks even joined us for the event.
The festival is usually held in June or July. If you’re in Tampa next summer, I hope you’ll come relive your memories of Japanese summers.
To participate in or receive emails about Tampa Natsu Matsui, please email tampa@floridajetaa.org. For John McGee’s June 2012 JQ article about the history of the festival, click here.
JQ Magazine: JETerations — How Alumni Touch New Generations of JETs
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Clare Grady and William Collazo representing fifteen years of JET at the Pre-Departure Orientation, Florida, 2012. (Courtesy of William Collazo)
By Bahia Simons-Lane (Gunma-ken, 2005-07) for JQ magazine. Bahia is the president of the Florida JET Alumni Association.
As a high school Japanese teacher in Deerfield Beach, Florida, WIlliam Collazo teaches his students about his time on JET along with his language lessons. Little did he know he would inspire a student to pursue JET years after she left his classroom.
Collazo said that JET was instrumental in deciding to become a Japanese teacher. He has a BA in Asian studies and religious studies, and he also studied Japanese language at Cornell University in New York. After JET, Collazo earned an MA in East Asian studies from Washington University in St. Louis, where he turned his academic interests to studying language pedagogy.
When he applied to the JET Program, he thought he would enjoy the work since he had some high school teaching experience, but mostly he was hoping to enhance his understanding of Japanese culture by living and working there. Instead, his two years on JET from 1997-99 in Hiroshima Prefecture were life-changing. “I didn’t think I would actually become a teacher of Japanese before going,” Collazo explained, “but my experience was so profound that I felt compelled to come home to Florida and share what I had learned in public education.”
His former student Clare Grady graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Chinese and departed to Northern Gifu on the JET Program last year. It was Collazo’s stories of JET that inspired Grady to apply for the JET Program. It might seem surprising that Grady majored in Chinese and not Japanese, but by the time Grady entered university she already had considerable Japanese capability under her belt due to the Deerfield Beach International Baccalaureate (IB) program. She started studying Japanese when she entered high school, but after completing all the Japanese classes offered at her school she began teaching herself Chinese—earning her the nickname “Kanji Master.”
JQ Magazine: Book Review – ‘Persona’ and the Muddy, Dark Spiritualism of Yukio Mishima
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“Starting with an almost psychoanalytic exploration of Mishima’s childhood and on to the evolution of his sexuality, political beliefs and varied artistic influences, Persona tries as much as possible to demystify the man himself and his personal contradictions.” (Stone Bridge Press)
By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.
Who was Yukio Mishima? Persona, the lengthy new tome by Naoki Inose (the current Governor of Tokyo) and Hiroaki Sato, seeks to answer that question with the use of a comprehensive set of primary resources such as interviews, unpublished writings and personal records. Kimitake Hiraoka was on track to follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps as a career bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance.
In addition to his favorable lineage, he had an impressive education and just the analytical mind such a career would have required. However, he decided to turn his back on the path he had paved for himself and instead try his hand at writing a novel. And so, Yukio Mishima was born and Confessions of a Mask would become the first literary gift he conferred on Japan and eventually the world.
One of Japan’s most famous authors and infamous icons is widely remembered for his dramatic public suicide by disembowelment in downtown Tokyo, though the authors of Persona make all attempts to explore every possible aspect of Mishima’s identity without letting his sensational death overshadow his life. Starting with an almost psychoanalytic exploration of his childhood and on to the evolution of his sexuality, political beliefs and varied artistic influences, Persona tries as much as possible to demystify the man himself and his personal contradictions; he was a stickler for convention with a penchant for taboo, fiercely Japanese with an affinity for western cultures, a man both highly disciplined and simmering with unchecked passion. Read More
JQ Magazine: Kyushu Battenkai – Sharing a Common Love of Japan with the JETAANY Community
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At right, Governor Hodo Nakamura of Nagasaki Prefecture with JET alumna Christy Jones and Kyushu Battenkai members, New York, September 2012. (Mark Flanigan)
By Mark Flanigan (Nagasaki-ken, 2000-04) for JQ magazine. Mark is a program director with The Japan ICU Foundation in New York. Prior to his current position, he was a Rotary Peace Fellow at International Christian University in Tokyo.
The JET Alumni Association of New York is fortunate to benefit from the diversity of such a major metropolitan area like greater NYC. As JET alumni, the members also have the pleasure of joining in with various events and activities with other Japan-related organizations. One of the most active of these organizations over the past few years is the Kyushu Battenkai. JETAANY members have been fortunate to be able to enjoy many get-togethers with them here in the city.
What is Kyushu Battenkai? It’s a very friendly and casual New York civic-based organization that was founded in 1997. Unlike many more formal Japanese organizations, they have no membership fee or official application process. They communicate with their approximately 150 members primarily by email as well as with updates on their website, which was launched in 2007.
The organization was started by a small group of New York-based Japanese people primarily from Nagasaki and Saga Prefectures. They later expanded to include people from all over Kyushu, and have added more activities over the years. They used to celebrate with just the Bonnenkai and Shinnenkai events, but now include about five events throughout the year, including festive spring and summer festival parties and, more recently, exciting jointly planned events with JETAANY.
Justin’s Japan: Nippon in New York — Hot Films, Magic Gardens and Cool Jazz
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Catch the 2013 New York Japan CineFest at Asia Society June 7-8. (Courtesy of Mar Creation, Inc.)
By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his Japanese culture page here for related stories.
After an unusually chilly spring, it’s finally starting to feel like summer. Enjoy some seasonal events this month that celebrate both the sunny and the dark side of life and nature.
June 8
Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue
$7 members, $9 students/seniors, $11 nonmembers
Returning for its second annual event at Asia Society and co-presented with Mar Creation, Inc, The New York Japan CineFest (NYJCF) will screen more than a dozen independent films in two days, kicking off Friday (June 7) with eight short films by U.S. based filmmakers with a reception to follow sponsored by Sapporo Beer. “New York Japan CineFest is the first independent Japan-themed film festival in New York,” says Hiroshi Kono, owner of Mar Creation. “It’ll soon be a trend that non-Japanese film directors make films with Japanese cast in Japanese language just like sushi and ramen became the world nations’ daily meals.”
Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street
$30 (use promo code TNCHTT25 for $25 tickets while supplies last)
Following a sold-out run produced by the Epic Theatre Ensemble in November, writer Jeanne Sakata and director Lisa Rothe’s one-man show returns to close out 10th annual soloNOVA Arts Festival. 2013 Drama Desk nominee Joel de la Fuente stars in the real-life story of first-generation Japanese American Gordon Hirabayashi, who posthumously received a Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in May 2012. During World War II in Seattle, University of Washington student Hirabayashi agonizes over U.S. government orders to forcibly remove and imprison all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast.
For the complete story, click here.
JQ Magazine: COBU Gives Sakura Matsuri Season a Beat
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Takae Kawabe, a member of the all-female New York City-based taiko group COBU. (Courtesy of Takae Kawabe)
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-2008) for JQ magazine. Kirsten is a native New Yorker and currently works as a teacher for the New York Board of Education.
Sakura matsuri season is upon us. For JET returnees, this time of year hearkens back to picnics with friends or students. Copious amounts of alcohol under the pink shower of blossoms and maneuvering through crowded lines of vendors celebrating the coming of spring. Sakura season also brings out the finest Japanese talent in New York and no event worth mentioning would be whole without the beating heart of COBU.
You haven’t been following COBU around like a bloodhound? Shame on you. Don’t even know what a COBU is? Double shame on you. Fortunately, oneesan is here to clue you in.
Spearheaded by artist and visionary Yako Miyamoto, COBU is more of a statement in taiko than a collaboration. We are heard. We are seen. We are felt. We are here. A handful of iron women play tirelessly in perfect sync. A little humor, an appropriate smattering of sexy and a metric ton of showmanship make COBU a delight for audiences across the tri-state area.
This year’s Branch Brook Park performance in New Jersey was a staggering hit by COBU, showcasing the talent of their following, or deshi. Upstage, COBU performing members Micro Fukuyama and Haruna Hisada kept time and loudly cheered on the fledgling members as they demonstrated some of COBU’S trademark choreography and pulsing patterns. If you have ever witnessed a COBU show before, it’s easy to become dazzled by the performing members, but this showcase invited audiences to the notion that, hey, they can be a part of this rhythm, too.
JQ Magazine: JETAA New York Greets Distinguished Guests
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Inuyama City Council Member Anthony Bianchi, center, poses with fellow JET alums at the Japan Friendship Festival, Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza, May 2013. (Photo courtesy of Ann Chow)
By Ann Chow (Hyogo-ken, 2007-09) for JQ magazine. Ann is a native New Yorker and serves as the Membership Development Chair for the JET Alumni Association of New York.
On April 17, members of the JET Alumni Association of New York (JETAANY) were invited to attend a reception at the Nippon Club for the Governor of Tokyo, Naoki Inose, who was in New York to drum up support for his city’s bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Among the guests at the reception included Willie Banks, the three-time track and field Olympian, and world record holder from 1985-95 in Men’s Triple Jump. (Cool trivia: Banks speaks fluent Japanese.)
And on May 3, several JETAANY members, along with employees of CLAIR and the Japanese consulate, were on site to help Inuyama City Council Member Anthony Bianchi (Aichi-ken, 1987-91) and B. Bridges participants at the Japan Friendship Festival at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. The B. Bridges program (short for “Brooklyn Bridge” as well as “Building Bridges” and “Be Bridges”) was created as a cultural exchange program by Bianchi and the administration of Xaverian High School, of which Bianchi is an alumnus.
“The idea for the B. Bridges exchange program was born 10 years ago at an event the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, held for me at Borough Hall after my first election, so it was great to be able to hold this, our Japan Friendship Festival: Inuyama Day at Borough Hall,” Bianchi said.
The program has sent close to 500 people from Brooklyn to Inuyama City and vice versa. This year, 40 participants came from Inuyama City to stay with families of students attending the school. On a beautiful sunny day, JETAANY members were able to help the group out at various booths which showcased tea ceremony, Japanese calligraphy, and traditional Japanese toys and wares.
“The cooperation of the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, the Japanese Consulate of New York, the Japan Local Government Center, and the JET Alumni Association of New York were crucial to making this event successful,” explained Bianchi.
He added: “I was also proud of our B. Bridges members, as well as our exchange partners at Xaverian High School, who made great use of the opportunity. This, I believe, made the event a great experience for all those in attendance.”
For additional photos from the events, click here and here.
