Kurashi - News From Japan

I have been wanting to post about this for a while, there is this great movement to do group calligraphy, set to music, and it's like a mad dance really. Groups of students clad in traditional hakama from different high schools even compete, in the annual Shodo Performance Koshien ... This is hard work and takes serious practice. It all seems to have started at a high school in Ehime, Shikoku, in Shikokuchuo, a town that specializes in making calligraphy paper. The movie, Shodo Girls even made it to Cannes in 2010. Saitama students from Matsuyama (first video below) are known to spend hours perfecting their cool routine. Monday is Coming-of-age holiday, so here is a big cheers to all the youngsters in Japan! Enjoy the videos.

Enjoy the exhibition of ukiyo-e at the small Ota Memorial Museum in Harajuku. Woodblock prints by Hiroshige depicting views of the autumn full moon. More: Moon Phases Calendar for September

I am fortunate enough to often get the chance to go to Naoshima and the beautiful Seto Inland Sea, and this year, from March to November, 2013 they are again hosting an event that should attract visitors. Update: As David (merci!) notes in the comment section, the Triennale is held during three sessions: One in the Spring (March 20 - April 21), one in Summer (July 20 - September 1st) and Fall (October 5th - November 4th). Easy access from Okayama. If you have never been to these parts of Japan, you are missing out! First held in 2010, the Art Setouchi is now a much larger, more extended event with events being planned for a large number of locations and islands. Did I mention "events"? List of participating artists here . Setouchi Triennale Website (English) here . You will get stuff like this : Inujima Art House Project: S-Art House An elongated gallery made of transparent acrylic panels appears behind a curve on the road in front of a tangerine or...

There is so much still underground at Mes Aynak. Over 5,000 years of history will be erased if Mes Aynak is destroyed in December of this year. On Facebook: The Buddhas of Aynak Great ABC interview with Brent Huffman Most people remember when the then rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, used artillery to destroy the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Now another huge and important archaeological site is under threat of destruction, but this time because of China's desire to mine copper. It's Mes Aynak, a site in Logar Province southeast of Kabul.  The China Metallurgical Group, known as MCC in English, aims to dig it up with explosives, with a target date of December this year. But archaeologists have only scratched the surface of the treasures of Mes Aynak. Brent Huffman is an award-winning documentary maker. He's working on a project called The Buddhas of Aynak, and he started by describing the ancient place. Photo: A gold-plated seated Buddha overlooks the t...

Lisa Hammond is one of a small group of Britain's leading potters, renowned for her expression of the notoriously difficult Japanese 'shino' glaze. As she throws and fires an exhibition of three years of her best work at Goldmark Gallery in Uppingham, Rutland, she explains her fascination with Japanese pots... http://youtu.be/I8kFT4gFMBo Lisa Hammond talks about Ken Matsuzki's exhibition opening at the Goldmark Gallery 2011. This documentary follows top UK studio potter Lisa Hammond as she prepares for her 2012 Goldmark exhibition. Delving into her artistic practice, it provides an insight in to the various stages that go into making her distinctive pieces. We see Lisa at her wheel throwing chawans (teabowls) and a large tsubo jar; firing and unpacking her kiln; and talking about her influences over the years, in particular her love of the Japanese pot making tradition. Also captured on camera is her technique of spraying the soda solution dire...

From the good people over at Kyoto Journal an appeal to support the next issue, "Fresh Currents" by donating thru the indiegogo.com website: http://www.indiegogo.com/freshcurrents More than a year after the triple meltdown at Fukushima, Japan and the rest of the world continue to grapple with the short- and long-term consequences. The myth that nuclear power can deliver us from the long-term evils of fossil fuels has been shattered. Renewable energy, long dismissed as impractical, is being given serious reconsideration. Japan can and must take advantage of this opportunity to rethink and refocus its energy strategies.   In Kyoto, birthplace of the Kyoto Protocol, a dedicated group of reporters, writers, artists, editors, and photographers associated with Kyoto Journal ( www.kyotojournal.org ) is taking a fresh look at proven and innovative alternative technologies such as solar, wind, geothermal, mini-hydro, and biomass as well as the even greater number ...

 I think this is a really nice idea (sometimes you just go with the flow): To create “uchiwamora,” Japanese calligraphy brushes were hung from a tree in Ishinomaki and as the wind blew, it created rhythmical brush strokes on the paper uchiwa. 石巻にある木の枝にぶら下げた筆が風の力で動くことにより描かれたデザインの「Tota Hasegawa×aromamora」がこちら。   There is an additional series of fans “KIDS x aromamora,” designed by the children staying in the evacuation shelters in Ishinomaki. All these designs are one of a kind. This series of uchiwa are scented by “aromamora &01Tohoku,” a fresh, comforting scent inspired by the forest in Tohoku. W+K Tokyo’s Kentaro Shihaku, worked as Creative Director on this project. From here

Sometimes in life, you get lucky, and you get to visit great places. You feel at peace with all things in the universe. Then, you get to meet unusual people, like in the classic film by Peter Brook from 1979. Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 1 of 11) Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 2 of 11) Then you get to just by chance meet someone who has designed the very building you are in, a museum in Shiga prefecture, the Miho Museum . I go there from time to time, I like the place a lot, it has a special concept of "beauty" and the viewpoint is "from East Asia" which makes it distinct from a lot of other ordinary museums. Art history, viewed from Japan, and also with a very feminine touch. We tend to ignore that perspective, but a woman with an artistic sense, like at Miho, can change everything around. The female touch has been a very important part of art in Asia, since ancient times. The English website does not quite explore this connection to Grandmother, ...

If you have a film camera of any kind, you can participate in the Japan In A Day project with great director Ridley Scott of Bladerunner fame, Fuji TV and others. I like how this can evolve into something that involves a lot of people. Getting published or playing live, having your work out there for others to enjoy! It is such a great chance with all the technology we have at our disposal. There has never been such an era before. Who knows where it will take you? Make a film and the rest is up to fate or karma, things that happen beyond our control. Use it! - Chihiro Kameyama and Takayuki Hayakawa ask you to capture your Japan in a day: It’s easy. All you need is a camera to get started! This is your chance to express yourself. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, we want you to film your day and show us your life and your Japan. No limits – you can submit as much or as little footage as you like, but you must film between 12:00AM to midnight on 11 March 2012 wherever you are. Go t...

I have recently been fascinated by the period of time in 1936 and 1937, before Japan's war in China broke out. It was an era of disaster waiting to happen, yet also beauty and cultural achievements, not to mention all the technological breakthroughs (such as the April, 1937 flight from Tokyo to Paris and London by "Japan's Lindbergh," pilot Masaaki Iinuma from Nagano). We have films and music from that era that help us understand, to some degree, the emotions and hopes of the individuals whose fate would be determined by the war, rather than peace. Oh well, it is all 75 years ago, who cares? Well, watch this clip from The New Earth (Japanese title 新しき土, Atarashiki Tsuchi, German title Die Tochter Des Samurai), and you will probably be moved. It starts in Hiroshima on Miyajima, at Itsukushima Shrine. Still a wonderful location. Amazing to see it the way it looked back then, complete with sacred deer and with no tourists... The actress is Setsuko Hara, born 1920. The f...

On January 14-15 2012, the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World will be held in Yokohama, Japan. Participants from Japan and all over the world will gather to consider the issues surrounding nuclear power and discuss steps that can be taken towards a nuclear power free world. Come and be a part of this conference. http://npfree.jp/english.html A good place to start exploring the mindset of people in Japan that are thinking about how to use art and graphics to get rid of nuclear weapons and nuclear power: No Nuke Art It began with the Nuclear Power Day poster contest held by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from 1994 to 2011. The contest collected posters primarily from elementary and junior high school students across the country as a way of furthering the understanding of nuclear power and radiation. There were mounting calls on Twitter to hold a No Nukes poster exhibition to counter this con...

I got a chance to go to listen to Mari Kawamura at Suntory Hall in Tokyo yesterday. She performed a very rich program of Shumann, Satie, Debussy and Mussorgski. She has studied piano in France and in the US and released one CD so far. I liked her no-nonsense style and relaxed interaction with the audience. English website here: Mari Kawamura Unfortunately, I can't seem to find anything by her on Youtube, but here is the Prélude from Suite Bergamasque by Debussy. Both Satie and especially Claude Debussy are well known and liked in Japan. Debussy even asked the printers to put the now famous Hokusai image, The Hollow of the Great Wave of Kanagawa on the cover page of the musical score for his La Mer (The Ocean). mellowmarie , an avid art appreciation blogger, writes : as i noted before, i myself had always sensed japanese tones in his melodies and had wondered if he had ever been influenced by japanese traditional music. it is interesting to learn that he was influenced by japonism....

I went back to Naoshima again in September, staying at the Benesse Art Site . There are a number of installations in the town and a couple of spectacular buildings by Tadao Ando. The view of the Seto Inland Sea makes it even more beautiful. This time, however, what really caught my attention was the works by James Turrell. He makes large rooms and space where light itself becomes the object. You actually step inside his art. It cannot be described, it has to be experienced. He notes that he works with frequencies of light that resonate, based on distance to the wall ahead of you. In other words, what you see is what your brain creates out of the visual stimula. Leave it to your mind to appreciate the rest. Open Sky (2004，Naoshima) can be viewed at anytime, but a special sunset viewing, Night Program, is also available. From wikipedia : Turrell's works defy the accelerated habits of people especially when looking at art. He feels that viewers spend so little time with the art that i...

I had the unusual pleasure to watch kabuki at Meijiza, an old theatre from the 1870s, today. Of course the building has been torn down and rebuilt, that seems to be part and parcel of Tokyo culture. The staff was terrific and we had tea before the performance, all smiles and helpful guides (and not another furrener in sight). As Kabukiza in Ginza is no more (and they had English translations) the Meijiza is perhaps your only opportunity to get some ancient theatre in Tokyo. Thus you need to do your homework, and thanks to the Internet, you can learn a lot about the plays. The Meijiza, east of Kanda, was packed with fans of kabuki. Many ladies showed up in their very best kimonos. Here is the Japanese website and a little English information too. I got to see Botan Rodo, the Peony Lantern, originally written by a Kyoto priest slash playright in the mid 17th century. A great love/horror drama with Buddhist notes, as the protagonist is faced with not one but two female ghosts. His karmic...

Okinawa, the most southern prefecture in Japan, has been a major focus during 2010. It is close to Taiwan, to South Korea, to Communist China. Yet, there is a massive U.S. military based there, as if World War II/Cold War never really ended. It is far south in the sense of Hawaii being far west of the United States. Oceans connect. For Okinawa, there is the culture, the music, the food, the ancient history. Japan should celebrate that it has such an amazing stretch, it reaches from the north to the south like few other countries. Dear readers, do we really "understand" what is going on in Okinawa, and near the islands that are all the source of conflicts... Do we not have a better set of values to solve problems? I would like East Asia to create a model for how to solve local/regional/national problems. After all, these are people/countries that have had close contact with each other for some 2000 years or more. I think we can/should/must expect better. Okinawa should look to...

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an amazing artist from Austria. He helped design the Maishima Incineration Plant in Osaka. I like how he was always interested in all aspects of life, making even the most mundane aspects of life more artistic - such as toilets and garbage: ...According to the guide, the plant didn’t cost any more than a traditional one because they cut corners in other areas. Inside, visitors will see what must be the world’s cleanest incineration plant. The whole place is spotless, high-tech, well-decorated and modern. Trucks pull up to a giant garbage pit, and two giant robotic hands (each 6m in circumference) pick up the garbage and dump it into a huge incinerator. The plant can handle 900 tons of garbage a day and is extremely impressive. If you are interested in finding out more about this quirky waste disposal icon, free tours are available with reservations. There is a good English pamphlet available but the guides do not speak English so please arrange an interp...

Save biological diversity by saving seed: the genetic resources needed to feed the world are under threat. Human intervention, climate change, pollution - and neglect - are all factors that severely reduce biodiversity. For food crops and livestock this is a very serious issue. If farmers choose to grow only one crop on huge farms, and reject varieties that they do not think are as profitable or easy to grow, who is going to preserve those other crops? As a seed is left forgotten (or eaten), its amazing genetic information is simply lost forever. Traditionally, farmers carefully saved seed based on observation of how the crops grew, how they handled changes in the weather conditions - and how good it tasted! Much of colonialization was really about accessing and bringing back edible plants to feed the growing population in Europe. The potato is a classic example. Often, there was little understanding of the need for genetic diversity. The famine in Ireland is often cited as an example ...

Saturday, May 8 (12:30 to 6:30 pm) is Fair Trade Day at the Marunouchi Building near Tokyo Station. The Tokyo event is part of two weeks of activities to promote and celebrate Fair Trade being held around the world this month. Fair Trade fashion pioneer, People Tree , is organising a salon-exhibition on fair trade in India, including a market of free trade goods, a fashion show, Japanese Taiko drum performance, presentations (in Japanese) on Free Trade, and a workshop on creation of fashion accessories. Entrance charge is ¥1,000. They highly recommend the organic buffet brunch in *Nonobudou*, a delicious Japanese restaurant in the Tokia Building, all you can eat for ¥1,600. (From Delphine Cheng, www.piubio.com ) As part of the events, painter and illustrator Keeda Oikawa did a performance. She is one of the most prominent on the Tokyo art scene with a strong environmental awareness, having done the cover art for the special issue of Elle Loves The Earth in 2008 and many other project...

Spring Equinox is a holiday in Japan. It fell on Saturday this year, so Monday is a substitute day off. Congratulations, you all deserve it. Known as 春分　(shunbun, vernal equinox) this is an ancient time to take note of the change of the seasons. When we talk about climate change or global warming, perhaps we ought to pay more attention to how the seasons and the climate had deep and profound implications for farmers and everyone. They paid much more attention to the stars and the planets than we do today. It made a difference, as they had to plant seeds and plan trips and sail according to the warm winds. Living closely attuned to the seasons was the key to survival for people since ancient times. In Asia, the calendars used to be lunisolar, meaning the cycles of the moon and the sun where both taken into consideration. For farmers in Japan, this calendar was also helpful as a guide to remember what to expect next. The principal method of telling time is actually rather easy. The day i...

Kimberly Hughes posted this: While living in Tokyo for nearly the past decade as a community peace activist, I have had several opportunities to interact with people from Iraq (human rights journalists, pediatricians, and visual artists, to be precise) during their visits to Japan on grassroots-level exchanges organized by local peace groups. Each time, I came away from the experience with marvelous memories and new friendships. Last week, a fellow member of the Iraq Hope Network alerted members to two short theater acts taking place at Tiny Alice, a cozy theater in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. The only available information was a short blurb including the names of the performers and the titles of their pieces: “Abu Ghraib Prison” from the Mustaheel-Alice theater troupe in Baghdad, Iraq; and “Woman Sindyan” from SINDYANA in Tunisia. Knowing from experience that this could be an opportunity for another interesting encounter, I headed together with one of my most engaged university student...