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April 23, 2024
 

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CLAIRE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2016
'The Myth of the American Sleepover': Missing some identifying teen spirit
It's one hot night near the end of summer somewhere in leafy suburban America, and a bunch of high school kids — from baby-faced freshmen to confident seniors — ride bikes out to their favorite swimming holes, cruise around in cars blaring tunes, wander from house to house thinking that the next party will be better and, with the help of alcohol, try to get sloppy enough to make out with someone. They're all restless, not realizing that years from now, they're going to look back at this aimless freedom as "the best days of their lives."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 28, 2015
TACT serves up some fantastical holiday fare
If you're so busy wondering how to spend the upcoming Golden Week holiday that you can hardly sleep, why not simply go and enjoy the TACT/Festival at TMET (Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre) in Ikebukuro — where you can count sheep, too, if you want.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 25, 2015
Top bunraku artist ensures his master's name lives on
Traditional Japanese puppetry, known as bunraku, has its roots in 17th-century Osaka, but in the following century a variant emerged in which, rather than a puppet being handled by just one person, three performers working together operated each puppet in a play's cast.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 18, 2015
All change for Kanze noh theater
Of Japan's many traditional performing arts, noh is the most refined — and among its most prominent figures today is 55-year-old Kiyokazu Kanze, the 26th head of its largest faction, the Kanze School.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 18, 2015
Unsung creator casts light on casting and her 'gift from heaven'
Ask any Japanese theater lover to list his or her favorite foreign directors, and most would include Peter Brook, the English-born, long-time French resident who has been bringing his productions here and encouraging audiences to explore new artistic realms since way back in 1973.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 18, 2015
Language no barrier to 'The River'
Playwright and director Go Aoki is one of today's many leading dramatists who emerged through the shōgekijō (small-scale youth theater) movement of the 1980s-2000s
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 28, 2015
Roppongi Kabuki cites sci-fi, punk
Known for its nightlife, its fleets of Ferraris and condos with sky-high prices, the affluent central Tokyo district of Roppongi will soon go where even that multinational neighborhood has never gone before — when the launch of a program named Roppongi Kabuki will see that ancient form of traditional theater staged there for the first time ever.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 28, 2015
Young gun Kinoshita takes aim at tradition
Though for more than 300 years it's only been performed by men and boys, kabuki exists in the public imagination as actors engulfed in hair and makeup, wearing elaborate costumes and striking ostentatious poses on a vast stage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 14, 2015
Rising stars of kabuki run new-year Asakusa gauntlet
One of the major sightseeing spots in Tokyo, and indeed in Japan, is the city's oldest temple, Sensoji, which was founded in 645 in the Asakusa district of present-day Taito Ward. Though perpetually thronged with people, its beautiful precincts attract staggering numbers at New Year's, when this is invariably one of the nation's five most popular venues for those making their traditional first temple visit of the year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 14, 2015
Ichiyanagi opera aims to be 'total work of art'
As part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama will stage a world-premier version of "Legend of the Water Flame," an opera by the renowned composer Toshi Ichiyanagi that's scored around a libretto by a fellow octogenarian, the poet Makoto Ooka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 7, 2015
Star Belgian choreographer celebrates manga and more
"Tokyo, my brother, my protector" was the tweet posted by Belgian-born Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui — often dubbed "the busiest choreographer in the world" — straight after he arrived here two months ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 17, 2014
'Entrance/Exit' shows the way for new arts fest
Bulging like a half moon out into the Seto Inland Sea from Kyushu's northeast corner, the Kunisaki Peninsula in Oita Prefecture may be remote and lack rail links to the rest of the country, but since time immemorial it has been a crossroads for travelers in both directions between Japan, the Korean Peninsula and China.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 26, 2014
Sarajevo's fine MESS shines light from yet more darkness
This year is the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, and among commemorations worldwide, in Sarajevo, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, there have been numerous events marking the June 28, 1914 assassination there of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie — the spark that lit a fuse that set off the conflict one month later.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 26, 2014
Chasing a Phantom of success
Based on "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra," a 1911 novel by the French author of detective fiction, Gaston Leroux, and transformed into a musical composed, co-written and produced by Englishman Andrew Lloyd Webber (now Baron Lloyd-Webber), "The Phantom of the Opera" was first produced in London in 1986 and went on to be a huge hit worldwide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 12, 2014
Super Kabuki 'spells fun'
Just like the many native English-speakers who have difficulty understanding the language and classical references in the works of William Shakespeare, so Japanese people generally feel a sense of distance from kabuki, as though it were a foreign language.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2014
NNTT debut peers behind the masks of 'Condemned' Sartre family
Until Japan was opened to the West in the mid-19th century, its theater culture mainly comprised traditional forms such as kabuki, comic kyōgen, bunraku (puppet theater) and noh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013
Bunraku storyteller speaks out
During the early part of the Edo Period, when Japan was ruled by Tokugawa shoguns from 1603-1867, Osaka — the main city in the Kansai region of western Honshu — thrived as the country's cultural and economic center. It was during those heady days around 400 years ago that a kind of puppetry called ningyō jōruri was born — a performance art, now commonly known as bunraku, that was designated by UNESCO in 2003 as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013
One year on from arts world 'disaster'
It's Oct. 27 and the setting sun fades to darkness. A long line of people begins to form around Tsukiji Honganji Temple next to the world-famous fish market in central Tokyo. The scene recalls what happened there last year on Dec. 27, the funeral of Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII who passed away in the city exactly one year ago now, on Dec. 5, 2012.
Japan’s cannabis market growing rapidly amid regulatory shift
The legality of products that contain cannabinoids, a group of substances derived from the cannabis plant, has been somewhat murky in Japan.
Philippines wants U.S. and Japan to take over rail deal eyed by China
Delfin Lorenzana
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
At least one dead, seven missing after two MSDF helicopters crash off Izu Islands
Contact was lost with the two SH-60K helicopters, each carrying four crew, in an area east of Torishima in the Izu Island chain during anti-submarine warfare training Saturday night.
Tokyo Rainbow Pride lights up capital as organizers celebrate 30 years
Rainbow flags were flown through the capital's busy Shibuya and Harajuku areas for Tokyo Rainbow Pride events this weekend as organizers hailed 30 years of one of Asia's largest LGBTQ celebrations.
'Sugar Baby Riri' gets nine-year prison term over romance scam
Mai Watanabe, who went by the moniker “Sugar Baby Riri,” dated older men and swindled them out of money by telling them fictitious heartbreaking stories about herself to gain their sympathy.
Hearing the impact of climate change in Okinawa, one bird call at a time
Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.
Salone del Mobile’s Maria Porro: ‘Italy and Japan share many things’
Since launching in 1961, the iconic Salone del Mobile furniture fair has firmly established Milan’s status as a leading force in the global design world
Japan’s cannabis market growing rapidly amid regulatory shift
The legality of products that contain cannabinoids, a group of substances derived from the cannabis plant, has been somewhat murky in Japan.
The unexpected ways in which Japanese words 'make it' into English
The Oxford English Dictionary contains 552 Japanese loanwords in English, a small number compared to the near 25,000 borrowings from French.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability
Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

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