‘When the opportunity came to work at Theatre Cocoon in Tokyo, I was so excited about the great dramatist Yukio Ninagawa being the artistic director there,” the English director Jonathan Munby declared. Of course that was before Ninagawa died, age 80, in May this ...
Japan’s musical dance-theater form known as noh was honed to its sublime simplicity in the 14th century by a father and son named Kan’ami and Zeami, and since then it has changed very little. Performed on a roofed stage with open sides and posts ...
Performing on deserted beaches and in villages, temples, dockland warehouses and urban railyards, few theater companies can have traversed the range of landscapes and settings that have inspired Osaka-based Ishinha. Yet though journeys real and imagined have been key themes in Ishinha’s recent works, ...
The animated film “Your Name.” is taking Japan by storm, with its box office revenues surpassing the ¥10 billion ($99 million) mark in just 28 days since its release, marking a milestone for a Japanese animation other than the works of renowned director Hayao ...
"As trends fade into the cultural rearview mirror, Hikaru Utada is a prime candidate to bring back what J-pop has lost in her absence: relatability.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea that Japan has three “most beautiful” places. It’s a tradition, or a received wisdom, if you like, to rank the triad of the land bridge Ama-no Hashidate, the rocky islands of Matsushima and the sacred torii in ...
To celebrate its 35th anniversary, the internationally renowned Kodo drumming troupe staged three days of performances at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in mid-August, with a different theme for each show. On the first night, Kodo played together with the New Japan Philharmonic; on the second, ...
And the envelope, please! The Pyongyang International Film Festival wrapped up Friday with top honors going to — wait for it — a domestically produced feature about a young woman who selflessly devotes herself to raising orphans. The winner of the “Best Torch Award,” ...
Aug. 28-Sept. 27 Described by critics as modern and intelligent, the work of Tatsusuke Kuriki (1943-2013) focuses on the form of ceramics in relation to their decorative potential and the restrictions of clay as a material. Unlike traditional pottery that often highlights imperfection as ...
Non-Japanese have written great books about Japan. Almost all of these masterpieces are nonfiction: essays, memoirs, monographs, histories, travel books. One might place, for example, Alan Booth’s “The Roads to Sata,” Donald Richie’s “Ozu,” Edward Seidensticker’s “Genji Days,” and Nicolas Bouvier’s “The Japanese Chronicles” ...
As consumers move away from regular terrestrial TV toward online video content, it appears that the domestic TV industry itself needs to undergo its own paradigm shift.
