Japan Society Announces Fall 2009 Season
Photograph © thile Beu
Japan Society has announced its Fall 2009 season, entitled Japan Transatlantic: Tokio-Berlin, in which Japan-themed performances developed in Berlin by international artists in collaboration with Japanese artists based outside of Japan will be highlighted. Programming will begin with the U.S. premiere of heavenly BENTO (September 17-19), by the Berlin-based international artist collective post theater. Created by Japanese media artist Hiroko Tanahashi and director Max Schumacher, it will use live-generated projections, dance and text to explore the world of the founders of Sony Corporation, Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, and their dream of forming an internationally successful consumer electronics company.
The New York premiere of Ame to Ame (Candy and Rain) (October 15-17), developed by the San Francisco/Berlin-based inkBoat and Berlin’s cokaseki, is a hybrid butoh-dance piece which follows two performers navigating their way through a sweet and philosophical love story. The piece is directed and designed by by cokaseki’s Marc Ates. Next will be the world premiere of Bessie Award-winning Jeremy Wade’s there is no end to more (December 3-5). This piece, performed by Jared Gradinger, juxtaposes movement, text, animation and video of manga (Japanese comics) to take a playful and cynical look at Japanese kawaii (cute) culture. Additional members of the creative team include Brooklyn-based Japanese manga artist/illustrator Hiroki Otsuka, Berlin-based video artist Veith Michel, musician Brendan Dougherty and architects Katja Mitte and Henning Ströh. Text is co-authored by Wade and visual artist/writer Marcos Rosales.
The Japan Society’s fall performing arts season will be rounded out with a dance showcase (January 8-9). During the course of the fall and early winter, there will also be related events, such as a Butoh workshop, and lectures.
For further information, visit: www.japansociety.org.
