Japanese Politics One Year After the Deluge
Ethan Scheiner, UC Davis; Robert Weiner, Naval Postgraduate School; T.J. Pempel, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Steve Vogel, UC Berkeley
September 8, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies
Ethan Scheiner (UC Davis) and Robert Weiner (Naval Postgraduate School) will analyze how Japanese politics has changed since the dramatic August 2009 Lower House elections that brought Japan a change in power, as the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) trounced the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had dominated Japanese politics for more than five decades. Has the DPJ permanently altered the dynamics of Japanese politics? Can the government address Japan's most pressing policy issues? Will this administration last? Scheiner and Weiner will also update us on the July 2010 Upper House elections and the latest developments ahead of the September elections for DPJ president. T. J. Pempel and Steven Vogel will serve as discussants.
Flowers in Japanese Art and Culture
Elaine Sedlack, UCBG Horticulturist
September 8, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Botanical Garden, Berkeley Art Museum
In collaboration with the Berkeley Art Museum's exhibit "Flowers of the Four Seasons," the Garden is offering a special tour of Japanese plants with Horticulturist Elaine Sedlack.
Group in Asian Studies Fall Welcome
Dr. Bonnie C. Wade, Professor of Music and Chair, Group in Asian Studies; Sharmila Shinde, Student Services Advisor, Group in Asian Studies
September 9, 2010
Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
All prospective and current majors and minors are invited to our Fall Welcome event. There will be an information session on major requirements, a meet and greet with the Faculty Chair and staff adviser, a current student panel, and a presentation on our student association followed by a pizza party social.
Corporeal Nationalisms: Dance and the State in East Asia
September 10-11, 2010
Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Anthropology, Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, East Asian Languages & Cultures
This is a transnational and interdisciplinary conference including movement workshops, dance-on-film screenings, and themed panels aimed at developing a community of scholars to engage critically with questions concerning contemporary East Asian nation-states and their performance of danced corporealities. The Corporeal Nationalisms conference will convene, for the first time, a community of scholars who research, dance, analyze, advocate, choreograph and/or write about the significance and power of dance and the nation state in twentieth and twenty-first century East Asia.
This conference begins Friday, September 10 in Dwinelle Annex 126, and continues through Sunday.
House of Bamboo; Samuel Fuller (U.S., 1952): Swoon: Great Leading Men in Gorgeous 35mm Prints
September 10, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Restored Print!
Aided by the double-lock-jawed presences of the Roberts, Ryan and Stack, Samuel Fuller combines two favorite topics, crime and GIs, with this gangster film involving crooked ex-soldiers organizing a syndicate in occupied Japan. Surly military cop Robert Stack goes undercover to infiltrate the cartel, led by the suavely psychotic Robert Ryan, and falls for the Japanese widow of a slain gangster. In the first postwar Hollywood film shot in Japan, astonishing CinemaScope images of Tokyo street life illuminate the backdrop for a new war, one between violent mobsters and vicious cops, with both sides displaying amazing lows in Ugly Americanism. The narrative quickly eliminates any moral ascendancy of cops over robbers, as generalized American thuggery runs riot amid a landscape of racial and cultural difference. "The police are much more violent and disagreeable than the criminals," Fuller explained, a point proven in the infamous ending: a blazing gunfight set in, of all places, a children's amusement park. —Jason Sanders
Written by Harry Kleiner. Photographed by Joe MacDonald. With Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi, Sessue Hayakawa. (102 mins, Color, 35mm, Scope, From 20th Century Fox, permission Criterion)
Tickets required: $5.50 BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students, $9.50 Adults (18-64), $6.50 UC Berkeley faculty and staff, non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, and youth (17 & under)
Beginning of Edo Period: L@TE: Friday Nights at BAM/PFA
Bahama Kangaroos, Artists; Shoko Hikage and Kanoko Nishi, Koto Performers
September 10, 2010
Center for Japanese Studiesm Berkeley Art Museum
(Doors 5 p.m., DJ 6:30 p.m.)
The sound of the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, provides the "soundtrack" for a live painting — a work of visual art completed as a public performance — by the duo the Bahama Kangaroos (artists Naoki Onodera and Yukako Ezoe Onodera). Shoko Hikage and Kanoko Nishi perform traditional works for koto ranging from the beginning of the Edo period to contemporary compositions. Beginning of the Edo Period is programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons.
Galleries Open Until 9 p.m.
Tickets required: Free BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff, and children (12 & under), $7 General, after 5PM
International Symposium on Healthy Aging: Perspectives from the United States, Sweden, and Japan
Gerdt Sundstrom, Ph.D., Professor, Jonkoping University; Takayuki Sasaki, Ph.D., Research Associate, Osaka University of Commerce, Winston Tseng, Ph.D., Research Sociologist, School of Public Health; Kazumi Hoshino, Ph.D., Visitng Scholar, School of Public Health; William Satariano, Ph.D., Professor, School of Public Health, S. Leonard Syme, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, School of Public Health; Andrew Scharlach, Ph.D., Kleiner Professor of Aging, School of Social Welfare
Panelist/Discussants: S. Leonard Syme, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, School of Public Health; Andrew Scharlach, Ph.D., Kleiner Professor of Aging, School of Social Welfare
September 13, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, International Symposium Planning Committee
Featured Speakers: Gerdt Sundstrom, Ph.D., Professor, Jonkoping University; Takayuki Sasaki, Ph.D., Research Associate, Osaka University of Commerce International Symposium on Healthy Aging will address three issues. The first is to examine healthy aging among older adults in the United States, Sweden, and Japan. The second is to clarify healthy aging among older immigrants in the United States, Sweden, and Japan. Eventually we will propose recommendations for health care policies for diverse older adults.
Jefferson Memorial Lectures: Japanese American Incarceration Reconsidered: 1970-2010
Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati
September 14, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Graduate Division
Roger Daniels, Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emeritus of History, University of Cincinnati, will present the Jefferson lecture on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 titled "Japanese American Incarceration Reconsidered: 1970-2010."
Japanese Koto Music in the Grove
Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto; Brian Mitsuhiro Wong
September 16, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Botanical Garden
Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Japanese Koto, a long, stringed instrument made from the Empress Tree (Paulownia tomentosa), with mother and son duo Shirley Muramoto and Brian Wong.
Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto's koto music has its roots in the American concentration camps of World War II. Her grandparents felt it was important for their daughter (Shirley's mother) to learn the koto while incarcerated at Topaz and Tule Lake. Shirley started learning koto from about the age of five. Raised in Oakland, California, her musical training reflected not only koto music, but violin, voice, and guitar. The multicultural influences she experienced growing up in the Bay Area gave her the inspiration for creativity in her koto playing. In 1976, Shirley travelled to Japan to take her "Shihan" teaching exams. Passing with high scores, she achieved the honor of "Yushusho" from the Chikushi Koto School in Fukuoka, Japan. In 2000, she received her "DaiShihan" master's degree from the same school for her dedication and teaching. Throughout her childhood, Shirley's major influence in koto music came from Katsuko Chikushi, one of the few women composers of the koto. She was also inspired greatly by the blind koto master Kimio Eto. She has performed in numerous recordings, performances, and collaborations. Shirley has produced CDs with the Murasaki Ensemble, a world jazz fusion group which she founded, and contemporary recordings with shakuhachi, violin, flute, and guitar. For over 30 years, she has given private lessons and classes on the koto, and continues to teach students of every age. She has also been active in researching the Japanese traditional arts in the concentration camps during World War II.
Brian Mitsuhiro Wong began playing koto when he was four years old and saxophone when he was ten years old. He studied koto with his mother and grandmother, and learned saxophone under Steve Parker. Brian has a Koshi degree with "Grand Prix" honors from the Sawai Koto Conservatory in Tokyo where he studied under Kazue Sawai and Hikaru Sawai. He also received his bachelor of arts degree from California State University, East Bay in music composition, and studied with Dr. Frank LaRocca, Dr. Jeffrey Miller, and Dr. Rafael Hernandez. He learned jazz with the Oaktown Jazz Workshop led by Khalil Shaheed and with the California State University at Hayward Jazz Ensembles under Dave Eshelman and Dann Zinn. He has performed jazz koto with the CSUEB jazz band at the Vienne, Umbria and Montreaux jazz festivals in Europe, and appeared on NHK TV in Japan. Brian performs and records around the Bay Area and teaches koto, saxophone, and general music studies. He has been teaching koto classes this year at UC Berkeley.
Impressions: A Selection of Contemporary Japanese Prints
September 20 – November 10, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
Prints, specifically woodblock prints, are an art form particularly associated with Japan. While artists in Japan continue to work in the woodblock print tradition, in recent decades Japanese artists have utilized a wide range of printmaking technologies. Like their print-making contemporaries elsewhere, they have experimented with new expressive effects. Some artists prefer themes and styles traditional in Japanese art; others engage global artistic trends in abstract art.
The works on display include a number of woodblock prints, but also lithographs, aquatints, etchings, mezzotints, and stencil.
This exhibit is but a small sample of the range of artistic creativity in Japanese printmaking. A guide available for use in the gallery contains brief comments highlighting aspects of the prints on display. The comments are but a suggestion of the many possible threads, associations, and references that link the works on display to Japanese artistic tradition. These comments are intended to suggest rather than affirm, and to spur the viewer to further exploration and examination.
The prints on display are on loan from SCRIPTUM Gallery in Berkeley, a gallery that specializes in Japanese prints. For further information on the prints on display, or to see additional examples of contemporary Japanese prints, visit www.scriptum.com.
An opening reception on October 11 will feature artist Shinji Ando, in conversation with Archana Horsting and Mayumi Hamanaka from the Kala Art Institute.
Documentary Film: [Senkyo] Campaign: Can a Candidate with No Political Experience and No Charisma Win an Election?
September 20, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies
Free film screening of "[Senkyo] Campaign" by Kazuhiro Soda (2007).
Synopsis: Can a candidate with no political experience and no charisma win an election if he is backed by the political giant Prime Minister Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic Party? This cinema-verite documentary closely follows a heated election campaign in Kawasaki, Japan, revealing the true nature of "democracy."
The film follows the inexperienced candidate, Kazuhiko Yamauchi's 2005 campaign to fight for a seat on the Kawasaki city council.
Willa and George Tanabe on Japanese Religious Art: Conversation in Conjunction with Flowers of the Four Seasons Exhibition
Willa Tanabe, Professor Emerita, Dept of Art and Art History, University of Hawai'i; George Tanabe, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Religion, University of Hawai'i
October 3, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Two noted scholars will examine significant pieces of Japanese Buddhist art featured in the exhibition through the lens of both religious studies and art history. Engaging each other in discussion about diverse works — including painted and sculptural images of the bodhisattva Jizo, a humorous Zen monk in a tree, and an exquisite Nyoirin Kannon — George and Willa Tanabe plan a complementary, occasionally contentious, disquisition on the backgrounds, styles, and meanings of Japanese religious art.
George Tanabe is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religion at the University of Hawai'i. He has written widely on Japanese religion, including co-authoring, with Ian Reader, Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan. He also edits several important series on Japanese tradition and Buddhism.
Willa Tanabe, former Dean of the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawai'i. She has published extensively on images connected to the Lotus Sutra and has also curated exhibitions of woodblock prints, Japanese embroidery, and the sacred art of Mt. Koya. The Tanabes are currently working on a guidebook to all of the Japanese Buddhist temples in Hawai'i.
Tickets required: Free UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff; BAM/PFA members; Children (12 & under), $10 Adults (18-64), $7 Non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, young adults (13-17)
Language and Migration: Lecture and Poetry Reading by Judy Halebsky
October 7, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Canadian Studies Program (CAN)
Judy Halebsky is a poet who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her book, Sky=Empty, won the 2009 New Issues Poetry Prize (New Issues, 2010). She has also published a chapbook Japanese for Daydreamers (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and in journals such as Grain Magazine, Antigonish Review and Eleven Eleven. Recently, she spent three years in Tokyo studying Japanese literature at Hosei University on a MEXT fellowship. With a collective of Tokyo poets, she edits and translates the bilingual poetry journal Eki Mae.
Dog Night with NYMPH: L@TE: Friday Nights at BAM/PFA
NYMPH, avant-garde music ensemble
Daniel Jay, artist
October 8, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
(Doors 5 p.m., DJ 6:30 p.m.)
Programmed by Tomo Yasuda
Japan's Edo Period had a strict law on the books: be nice to dogs and other animals, or else! Brooklyn-based psychedelic-shred/avant-garde ensemble NYMPH bares its teeth for an evening of new music with a decidedly tribal feel. Artist and intergalactic traveler Daniel Jay projects visuals celebrating our four-legged friends. Dog Night with NYMPH is programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons.
Tickets required: Free BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff, and children (12 & under), $7 General, after 5PM
Guided Tour: Flowers of the Four Seasons
October 9, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
A dazzling array of Japan's greatest artistic traditions from ancient to modern are on view in BAM/PFA's major fall exhibition, which features a selection of more than 100 works of art from one of the most significant collections of Japanese art in America.
Guided tours of Flowers of the Four Seasons are presented by UC Berkeley graduate students in the Department of Art History on Thursdays at 12 noon and Sundays at 2 p.m. Student guides, all of whom specialize in East Asian art, are Kristopher Kersey, Carl Gellert, and Michelle Wang. Guided tours included with regular museum admission.
Tickets required: Free BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff, and children (12 & under), $10 Adults (18-64), $7 Non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, and young adults (13-17)
Film Screening: Throne of Blood; Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1957): Shakespeare on Screen
October 9, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
(Kumonosujô). In his audacious adaptation of Macbeth, Kurosawa captures the power and emotional grandeur of the original without using a word of Shakespeare's language, instead relying on the aesthetics of Noh theater and his own visual and cinematic invention to brilliantly evoke the Bard's themes of destruction, guilt, and overwhelming greed. Lords, warriors, witches, wives, and the prophesies that bind and bloody them make up the narrative, but the film's true force comes from its claustrophobic, paranoia-inducing milieu of darkened forests, low-ceilinged castles, and a drifting fog that chillingly haunts every frame. Toshiro Mifune brings his Macbeth to life with a concentrated physicality, using every gesture and glance to become a man possessed, then destroyed, by a dream of power. His look of terror during the penultimate scene might be traced to more than acting: Kurosawa had an archery squad shoot real arrows at him from just offscreen, their only instructions to aim very, very close. —Jason Sanders
Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Kurosawa, based on Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Photographed by Asaichi Nakai. With Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki. (107 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Janus/Criterion Collection)
Followed at 8:10 by João César Monteiro's God's Wedding. Same-day second screening discount just $4!
Tickets required: $5.50 BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students, $9.50 Adults (18-64), $6.50 UC Berkeley faculty and staff, non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, and youth (17 & under)
"Impressions": Opening Reception with Artist
Shinji Ando, Artist; Archana Horsting, Executive Director, Kala Art Institute; Mayumi Hamanaka, Communications Manager, Kala Art Institute
October 11, 2010
Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies
"Impressions: A Selection of Contemporary Japanese Prints" is on view in the IEAS Gallery through November 10. The opening reception features an appearance by artist Shinji Ando, whose work is included in the show, and representatives from the Kala Art Institute, a premier studio in Berkeley, who will discuss the art of the print.
Toyota in Low Gear: How Serious Are Its Quality Problems? What Can We Learn From Them?
Robert E. Cole, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
October 12, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies
In late 2009 and early 2010, Toyota announced massive recalls for quality problems. There is some dispute about how serious and what might be the causes of these problems. This talk will address these issues, and deal with the root causes of their quality problems. It will also address the extent of the challenges they face in recovering their quality reputation.
These challenges are quite varied and range from the state of competition in the global industry, to the specifics of improving quality, and to the understanding of what is required to change consumer perceptions. Toyota has a number of tools to address these obstacles, but they also face challenges which are much larger than most observers have so far acknowledged. Finally, the talk will address the implications of Toyota's behavior for theories of Japanese organizational behavior.
Prof. Cole is Emeritus professor of sociology and business administration at UC Berkeley. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at Doshisha University. He is a long term researcher on Japanese work organization with a particular focus on quality improvement, innovation and organizational change. He has written extensively on quality improvement in the American and Japanese automobile industries.
Red Leaves and Frog Feet: The Literary Japanese Maple
Liza Dalby
October 14, 2010
Botanical Garden, Center for Japanese Studies
As a special program tied in with the Berkeley Art Museum's Exhibition " Flowers of the Four Seasons: Ten Centuries of Art from the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture" the Garden is offering tours and lectures on nature in Japanese art.
On Thursday, October 14, 2010 we welcome Liza Dalby, celebrated author and anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture and Berkeley resident. She will be speaking on Japanese literature and art and the use of the natural world to evoke meaning and metaphor.
Registration not required: Free with Garden Admission (Free for UC Students, Staff and Faculty)
H I D E O – A Theatrical Concert of Anime and Video Game Music
October 16, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies
From the creator of Tribute (2006) comes another theatrical concert of music from Japanese animation and video games! The story is timeless – a young hero on an epic quest for justice. The music – internationally acclaimed. Each piece performed tells a part of the story as this dramatic concert brings music from Noir, Fullmetal Alchemist, Final Fantasy, Mega Man and others to life with unique costumes, lighting effects, and projected illustrations as we follow Hideo down the hero's path.
PRE-SHOW EVENT AT 7:30 P.M. — A TRIBUTE TO SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Join us in the lobby at 7:30 P.M. for a musical showcase of tunes from Sega's classic video game series Sonic the Hedgehog performed by local keyboardist Kevin Wong from BASSment!
For more information, visit the official website for the Hideo Concert.
Materials and Meaning in Contemporary Japanese Architecture: Tradition and Today
Dana Buntrock, Associate Professor, Architecture, UC Berkeley
October 20, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies: Institute of East Asian Studies
Temples and teahouses, shrines and sliding shoji screens, cascading cherry blossoms and solitary stones; Tokyoites carrying the tiniest, technologically-sophisticated telephones insist they are unaware of tradition, yet all around them vestiges remain. Visitors from abroad board high-speed trains traveling 200 kilometers an hour, but bound for Kyoto's gardens and shrines.
Japan nurtures two distinctly different poles of architectural practice. Innovative and up-to-date structures underscore modernity and a new social fabric, an international architecture with a purist bent: spare, state-of-the art structures, smooth and swooping, scholarly and scientific, skinned in sparkling aluminum, steel, and glass. Others allude to an older Asia, to Japan's religious roots or residential realms. These architects accept ruin and idealize age, offering up an approach that is raw and robust, raffish and ragtag, rambunctious and reckless, rough and rudimentary, risky and risqué, and regionally responsive. It is about being rooted and having a roof.
My book, Materials and Meaning in Contemporary Japanese Architecture: Tradition and Today, looks closely at the work of a handful of architects who could be from nowhere else, their provenance indisputably reflected in their architecture: Kengo Kuma, Terunobu Fujimori, Fumihiko Maki, Jun Aoki, and Ryoji Suzuki. Their work in Japan rots and inclines to ruin; it is made of rust, rammed earth, red brick, random rock rubble or recycled rubbish. In my book I introduce a number of wonderful works barely known in the West and I explain why these architects embraced aging in their unusual architecture. In my lecture, I will share some of these stories. Introduced by Steven Vogel, Chair, Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley.
Voices in the Wooden House: Angel Island Inscriptions and Immigrant Poetry, 1910-1940
Professor Charles Egan, Foreign Languages & Literatures, San Francisco State University
October 27, 2010
Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
Throughout the thirty years of its history as an immigration detention center from 1910 to 1940, those incarcerated at the Angel Island Immigration Station never ceased writing on the wooden barracks walls. Each of the hundreds of inscriptions tells the story of an individual, and taken together they illuminate historical, economic and cultural forces that shaped the lives of ordinary people in the first half of the twentieth century. The Chinese writing there is already well known, and is compelling because so much of it is poetry. Yet only a portion of the Chinese poems is as yet known to the public. Immigrants of other nationalities did not leave poems on the walls, but they did frequently contribute poems to the literary pages of ethnic newspapers in California. This talk will introduce Chinese, Japanese, and Korean poems drawn from the Angel Island walls and from the daily papers. These works provide rich perspectives on the Asian immigrant experience and its challenges.
Willard Clark and Amy Poster: Conversation
Willard G. Clark, Founder, Clark Center; Amy Poster, Curator Emerita of Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum
October 31, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Willard G. Clark, founder of the Clark Center, will converse with Amy Poster, Curator Emerita of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, about his lifelong collecting of Japanese art.
Using visual illustrations, Clark will discuss his personal passion for Japanese art and culture and how he became involved in collecting, and share personal reflections about individual objects.
Amy Poster, currently an independent curator based in New York, was affiliated with the Asian Art department at the Brooklyn Museum from 1969 to 2006. Among her many major publications are Journey Through Asia: Masterpieces of Asian Art in the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo; and Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of East Asian Art from New York Private Collections.
Following their conversation, Clark and Poster will together offer an informal walkthrough of the exhibition.
Open to all audiences.
Tickets required: Free UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff; BAM/PFA members; Children (12 & under), $10 Adults (18-64), $7 Non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, young adults (13-17)
The Japanese Bureaucracy under Siege: Political Change and Administrative Reform
Masahiro Horie, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
November 9, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies
Why has Japan had such frequent changes of prime minister and short-lived cabinets in recent years? Professor Horie will discuss this and other puzzles as he analyzes the major issues for political and administrative reform in Japan.
Masahiro Horie received his Master's in Public Administration from Syracuse University, and is currently the Executive Advisor to the President and Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan (GRIPS). He was also awarded the "2001 Stars of Asia Award" from Business Week for being a distinguished reform leader and innovator (as the first professional Japanese government official in the field of politics and public administration).
Kabuki Close-Up: Makeup and Acting Demonstration
November 12, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Kabuki Close-Up: Makeup and Acting Demonstration
Zenshinza Theater Company
In conjunction with the Flowers of the Four Seasons exhibition, members of the famed Zenshinza Theater Company will demonstrate and describe techniques of Kabuki makeup and acting. A cherished artistic institution in its homeland, Zenshinza performs before more than 250,000 people annually in a wide range of lavish and colorful productions, from traditional Kabuki to period dramas and historical plays about Japanese Buddhism.
One of Japan's oldest theater troupes, the Zenshinza Theater Company will appear at Cal Performances in two different programs, on November 13 at 8 p.m. and November 14 at 3 p.m. The museum's presentation offers a special opportunity for a behind-the-scenes encounter with these extraordinary artists as well as insights into their art.
Open to all audiences.
Tickets required: $10 Adults (18-64), $7 Non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, and young adults (13-17), free BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff, and children (12 & under)
Zenshinza Theatre Company
November 13-14, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Cal Performances
Experience an enthralling theatrical tradition presented by its most skilled practitioners! Among Japan's oldest theater troupes, this 68-member company performs before more than 250,000 people annually. A cherished artistic institution in its homeland, Zenshinza stages a wide range of lavish and colorful productions ranging from traditional kabuki to period dramas and historical plays about Japanese Buddhism.
Program A (Nov 13): Narukami (1724), presented in the aragoto (heroic) style, is one of the 18 greatest kabuki plays. This classic drama showcases the superhuman strength and valor of the kabuki hero, and is highlighted by a famous scene in which a beautiful princess seduces a fiery priest. In Chatsubo ("The Tea Chest"), a country bumpkin encounters many challenges when he comes to the city. It provides a light, comic counterpoint to the more serious drama.
Program B (Nov 14): Honen and Shinran (2006). Written by Tajima Ei. A moving historical drama depicting the upheaval of 13th-century Japan, and two priests, Honen and Shinran, who opened a path to freedom through affirming the essence of life and human existence in a time of civil war and moral collapse. Because of their break from monastic traditions and their founding of a lay ministry, they are often compared with Calvin and Luther.
Tickets required: $48/$60/$72/$86 Available through the Cal Performances Ticket Office.
Bamboo and Porcelain: The Art of Uematsu Chikuyu and Fukami Sueharu: Gallery Talk with Andreas Marks
Andreas Marks, director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in Hanford, California
December 5, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Andreas Marks, director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in Hanford, California, will offer an in-depth look at the contemporary component of Flowers of the Four Seasons: sculpture by two leading artists working in the traditional mediums of bamboo and porcelain.
Since the 1950s, some artists have experimented with bamboo—for centuries plaited by Japanese farmers and artisans into functional containers for utilitarian and ritual purposes—as a purely sculptural form. One of the highlights of Flowers of the Four Seasons is the work of Uematsu Chikuyu, an artist of extraordinary technical skill who pushes the medium of bamboo to new conceptual and technical limits.
Fukami Sueharu is internationally known for his razor-sharp, minimalist porcelain sculptures. Their distinctive pale bluish glaze, seihakuji, is inspired by later Song period Chinese celadons, but unlike their even glaze, Fukami's work displays an exquisitely variable density of color. The Clark Center will present a solo exhibition of Fukami, whose work is represented in forty-seven museums worldwide, opening on March 26, 2011.
Marks, co-curator of Flowers of the Four Seasons with Senior Curator of Asian Art Julia M. White, holds a Ph.D. in East Asian art history from Leiden University. He has curated exhibitions on various aspects of Japanese art and has published significantly on Japanese prints. He is currently working on the book Fukami: Purity of Form to accompany the Clark Center exhibition.
The Transformation Call with Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company: L@TE: Friday Nights at BAM/PFA
Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company; Vomica
December 10, 2010
Center for Japanese Studies, Berkeley Art Museum
Programmed by Tomo Yasuda
December marks the end of the year, a transition to a new season, abrupt but not as shocking as the transition from the Edo to Meiji periods, a near-apocalyptic experience for the Japanese, when foreign pressure opened Japan to the modern world. Berkeley-based Butoh masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano and over fifty dancers from their Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company will interpret the winter season and change with a performance based on the 1918 short story "The Spider's Thread" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Staged in Gallery B, the dance will incorporate BAMscape, Thom Faulders's 1,500-square-foot hybrid of sculpture, furniture, and stage. San Francisco-based Vomica will accompany the performance with an original composition. The final video loop in a series of four by Sara Magenheimer, this one evoking the last month of the year, will round out the spectacle. The Transformation Call is programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons.
From meditative masterpieces to off-kilter performances, L@TE programming invades Gallery B with classical and experimental soundworks, dance, video, and conceptual and performance art. Guest programmer Tomo Yasuda's L@TE series concludes its dialogue with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons: Ten Centuries of Art from the Clark Collection for Japanese Art and Culture. Friday night programs typically begin at 7:30 p.m. in Gallery B; doors open at 5 p.m. with DJs in the lobby or Gallery B at 6:30 p.m. Admission is $7; free for BAM/PFA members and Cal students.