Metropolis asked 16 local writers and musicians to describe a formative encounter with a Japanese song. The resulting mix—from folk to noise to metal and enka—represents a half-century of sounds from one of the most diverse music scenes on the planet
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s Japan’s year of Madchester. The Stone Roses are headlining Fuji Rock, and Peter Hook just performed Joy Division songs at the Hacienda Oiso festival. But Japan also responded to England’s late ’80s ecstasy-fueled, rock-meets-dance-music revolution with its own Second Summer of Love. For one night, nostalgic fans and the ...
With a band name meaning “for pre-determined lovers,” the copiously-named Arakajime Kimerareta Koibitotachi E plays a shoegazer-influenced variant of dub, the psychedelic instrumental offshoot of Jamaican reggae. “Arakoi,” as the Tokyo band is known to fans, has a new EP out called Kyo (“Today,”) and to celebrate its release is hosting a “one man” concert ...
Three of Japan’s most vaunted post-rock and hardcore acts gang up for an aural assault. Critically hyped psychedelic sludge-core trio Boris are currently on a tear, with three albums out this year including a collaboration with noise god Mertzbow and a world tour to follow this fall. Signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action imprint, screamo act ...
Though not as well known as figures like Sergio Mendes or João Gilberto and his daughter Bebel, keyboard phenom and multi-instrumentalist Hugo Fattoruso personifies the journey of Latin jazz to the English-speaking world. Born in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, Fattoruso’s unique legacy is to have brought the complex Afro-Uruguayan rhythms of candombe to New York ...
In the 1950s, a group of Japanese architects envisaged an organic process for urban housing they dubbed “Metabolism.” A half-century later, architect Koh Kitayama curated a look at this movement at the 2010 Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale. “Tokyo Metabolizing” presents full-scale houses from firms influenced by Metabolism such as Kitayama, Atelier Bow-Wow and ...
Following up on a planned April engagement that was delayed by the quake, veteran Japanese drum and bass DJ Aki hosts two European heavyweights at his decade-old O6S party. Aki witnessed Englishman Shimon and Austrian Disazt (his mother thought his music was a disaster) performing back to back on the Audioporn stage at Austria’s 2010 ...
Among Tokyo’s numerous obscure but intriguing small museums is the Yayoi Museum in Bunkyo Ward. The space is devoted to the works of Taisho-era artist Yumeji Takehisa, famous for his portraits of beauties, but is currently hosting an exhibition focusing on Kasho Takabatake, another artist of the era known for his illustrations of lovely young ...
Another act following up next weekend’s Fuji Rock with a gig in Tokyo is leftfield Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, who impressed audiences last year in gigs with Deerhoof and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Singer Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin met studying improvisation at the University of Gothenburg, and their music joins pairings like ...
If playing Fuji Rock weren’t enough, German dance music survivor DJ Hell will be following up Japan’s largest rock fest with a gig at one of the country’s hippest clubs. Hell has been a fixture of the German techno scene since he began mixing electro, house and hip-hop in the mid-’80s, and first gained widespread ...
The South American country celebrates its national day with a free concert at Hibiya Park next weekend that will for the first time feature cross-cultural collaborations with Japanese taiko drummers Kuryu and koto ensemble Waon. They will be joining featured Colombian band Maria Mulata, a unit that matches renowned vocalist Diane Hernandez to a rhythmic ...
Commission your artwork by the square inch when American conceptual artist LG Williams tapes his blank rectangle to the wall at unconventional art space The Container. With “Anything But,” Williams playfully questions the values of the contemporary art market. The nomadic Californian plies his trade the world over, creating ironic installations for venues like the ...
Aside from a sprawling exhibit at the Mori a few years back, Japan sees little in the way of African art. But the first solo show in Japan of renowned Ghanian sculptor El Anatsui is currently touring the country; after stops in Osaka, Hayama and Tsuruoka it sets down for the summer in Saitama. El ...
“Yuming” may not top the charts like she did with relentless regularity in the ’80s and ’90s, but Yumi Matsutoya still has one of the clearest, brightest voices in the business, and can still fill Tokyo International Forum night after night. As in past years, the 73-date tour for her 36th original album Road Show ...
For a sampling of Japan’s dance scene, it doesn’t get any bigger or better than longstanding venue Die Pratze’s Dance Ga Mitai! festival. The 13th annual performing arts smorgasbord hosts veterans as well newcomers over six weeks this summer. Among the storied names are butoh company Torifune (pictured) and cutting-edge dance-theater-video troupe Kakuya Ohashi and ...
Fans of dub, dubstep, drum ‘n’ bass and the like no longer have to go to Croatia to get their fix. Now “Europe’s largest bass music & soundsystem culture festival” comes to Japan. The first installation welcomes storied British soundsystem champion and MC Macka B to the stage alongside a posse of Japan’s better bass ...
Head of the House of Dior at age 21, founder of a prêt-à-porter empire, the first living fashion designer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a man of notorious appetites, Yves Saint Laurent was larger than life. Photographer Jeanloup Sieff was privileged to have access to the designer and ...
Close to 1,000 exhibitors and 100,000 people will gather for the 18th annual Tokyo International Book Fair at Big Site in Odaiba. Held concurrently, the e-Book Expo—which bills itself as the world’s largest trade show for e-books and content—will take up, in a bilingual session, the latest digital rights management issues in the rapidly growing ...
“The Maestro” of New York house returns to Tokyo for another one of his epic dusk-till-dawn sets. The DJ is known as the impresario behind New York’s legendary Shelter parties, and has also been a frequent visitor to Japan. On this occasion, Regisford makes the event doubly special with the release of Timmy Regisford × ...
Popular Butoh troupe Dairakudakan usually presents the large-scale works of director Akaji Maro at the Setagaya Public Theater. But the avant-garde dance company also offers the chance to look at the choreographic creations of its members through smaller performances at its black box Kochuten theater in Kichijoji. Next in the series is Hitsuki-Bana (“Day-moon- flower”), ...
Hip Daikanyama club Unit celebrates its seventh anniversary with a post-punk dream bill. Influential UK band Wire’s angular phrasings and experimental approaches can be heard in the offerings of countless bands to emerge since the ‘80s. With a new album in the form of Red Barked Tree, Wire—in Japan for the first time in seven ...
Another of the many events reviving the Tokyo Station area as an entertainment hub is Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi. The free exhibition of emerging artists’ work is shown to commuters passing by the Gyoku-dori underground passage that connects Hibiya dori in front of the Imperial Palace to Tokyo Station. Many of the artists are presenting ...
A perennial favorite of Japan, Swiss-born painter Paul Klee (1879-1940) is the subject of a new large-scale exhibition. The focus this time is on the artist’s creative process. Variously described as an Expressionist, Cubist and Surrealist, Klee developed unique methods—and was fastidious about categorizing and recording the process of how each work was made. “Art ...
Soul diva Marlena Shaw and players on her historic 1974 album Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? reprise a 2009 reunion tour of Japan. The record was a seminal work of “feminist funk” and set Shaw’s mellow, smoky voice amid a cool background of soul-jazz provided by bassist Chuck Rainey, guitarist David T. Walker, keyboardist Larry ...
London track maker Perc slides into town bearing a new musical missive in the form of his debut long player, Wicker & Steel. The purveyor of blistering beats says the album combines his ardor for vintage British horror films like The Wicker Man with the “steel” of the Birmingham and Berlin techno scenes. Perc’s industrial-grade ...
Pop metal act Man With A Mission should really be called Wolves With A Mission—they are notorious for performing in wolf masks. The band celebrates its self-titled major label debut release with a “one man” gig next month at storied Shibuya live house Eggman. Combining the rap metal of Linkin Park with the heavy grunge ...
Since the death of renowned contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch, longtime members of her company have been debuting works of their own. Fabien Prioville last year emerged with his first feature-length solo choreography Jailbreak Mind, a piece that combines high-tech Hollywood video graphics with supple motions that sometimes approach the street slang of break dancing. ...
Ever with its finger on the cultural zeitgeist, fashion brand Diesel presents the first Japan exhibition of trendy Brooklyn design duo Mogollon. Creating artwork and video for pop figures from Madonna to Fischerspooner, Mogollon was formed in 2004 by American Francisco Lopez (born in 1974, USA) and Venezuelan Monica Brand. “Something Is About to Happen” ...
Who are the photographers taking up the mantle of great Japanese reportage lens men like Masayuki Yoshinaga and Daido Moriyama? Find out at an upcoming exhibition of prints shot by members of their Resist workshop. The group ranges in age from 23 to 65, and takes in professional photographers and hobbyists. Titling their show “Ryu” ...
On the 150th Anniversary of Kuniyoshi Utagawa’s death, the renowned ukiyo-e printmaker is seeing a renewed wave of attention. In Japan, his trippy images of ghosts and demons are credited for helping spark the current “specter boom,” while overseas the artist has recently been the subject of retrospectives in New York and London. The new ...
Rev up for Fuji Rock with like-minded revelers at media personality and DJ Bryan Burton-Lewis’s All-Night Fuji Pre-Party. Burton-Lewis gets the party started each year with his All-Night Fuji Friday night events at the festival. This year’s he’s getting things off the ground even earlier with a blowout at massive bayside club Ageha. Jetting in ...
A ballet dancer who has performed for Queen Elizabeth and Pope John Paul II will play Prince Siegfried in the Tokyo Ballet’s upcoming performance of Swan Lake. One of the iconic dancers of our era, Italian Roberto Bolle is currently principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater in New York. For his first appearance in ...
A rare visit by a music act from New Zealand’s south island comes in the form of Dunedin’s Die! Die! Die! Fronted by Andrew Wilson, the trio had musical fairy dust sprinkled on them when Steve Albini produced their self-titled debut album in 2005. Their Japan debut seems them flogging their new, third effort Form ...
Expatriate Scot Campbell Gunn, based in Tokyo since the early ’80s, presents a collection of dramatic photos shot in the African nation of Namibia in 2010 at the Temporary Contemporary Gallery in Tsukishima. Gunn’s sense of color is acute and he captures the linear balance of the Namibian Desert’s barren escarpment. Upcoming projects will feature ...
This may be the era of cultural fusion, but seldom has such a mellifluous synthesis been created as the combination of Malian kora player Ballake Sissoko and French cellist Vincent Segal. The pair have recently been acclaimed for their album Chamber Music, which sets the ethereal, harp-like sounds of Sissoko’s kora against Segal’s moody, elegant ...
Those interested in finding out more about the artist who painted the giant mural inside Shibuya station can take advantage of two concurrent exhibitions featuring the work of Taro Okamoto. “The Face is the Universe” looks at Okamoto’s obsession with the face, including his unfinished works “Thunder Man” and “Myth of Fertility,” a companion to ...
Headbangers looking for a bit of catharsis should dial their GPS systems to Shibuya and Yokohama, where Finnish metalists Children of Bodom and Amorphis will be performing later this month. Perennial favorites in Japan, Children of Bodom are currently touring their hot-off-the-press Relentless Reckless Forever. Even hoarier than Children of Bodom, Amorphis also have a ...
Hip-hop-influenced hoofer Kentaro!! presents his latest mashup of street and contemporary dance. Since debuting his Electrock Stairs company in 2008, Kentaro has become the toast of Tokyo’s contemporary dance community. This probably has to do with the informal flair and joie de vivre of his choreography, which contrasts starkly with much of the weighty, obsessive ...
New Tokyo-based intelligent hip-hop and downtempo electronica label Inductive drops its debut release at a party this weekend in Shibuya. Launched by expat French DJ and producer Audace, Inductive hits the ground running with American rapper Chiba the Chemist’s first album, Helmet Jawz. Flaunting dark, atmospheric productions by Audace and fellow trackmakers Crane 11 and ...
Striking contemporary dancer Yumi Yoshimoto takes the latest in her Flowers series of site-specific “Paradise” performances to a gritty industrial wharf in Kawasaki. Following a performance at a converted junior high school, Yoshimoto moves outdoors, accompanied by frequent partners, avant-garde cellist Hiromichi Sakamoto, German percussionist Kosmas Kapitza and stage installation artist Kazuhiro Ishiyama. “Paradise” in ...
Ballet dancers from the National Ballet of Japan bust out of their classical straightjackets to try their hand at contemporary dance. Three dancers choreograph three very different works. Kimiho Hulbert presents Almond Blossoms, set to music by French Romantic composer Claude Debussy. Yuzo Ishiyama offers Qwerty, a multimedia performance named for the widely used keyboard ...
Close friends of Japan, Montreal band Your Favorite Enemies tour the country with their Hope Project, an online letter-writing campaign in which fans penned messages of support to quake survivors. After handing over the thousands of messages they have collected in ten languages to the Japanese Red Cross to be delivered to shelters across Tohoku, ...
With the Sky Tree due to open next year, Tokyo Tower is pulling out the stops to draw visitors. Underway at the Foot Town building at the base of a tower is the latest dinosaur exhibition to hit Tokyo. “Dinosaurs x Tokyo Tower” comes to the capital from Japan’s largest dinosaur institution, the Fukui Prefectural ...
Expatriate French illustrator and cartoonist Vincent Lefrançois is the subject of an exhibition at the French Institute. Lefrançois is a two-decade resident of Fukuoka and is best known for adapting the work of renowned Japanese manga-ka Jiro Taniguchi into French. “Vagabondages” (“Wanderings”) includes a series of classrooms that Lefrançois painted at the French Institute to ...
England’s International Theatre Company London (ITCL) brings another compact interpretation of Shakespeare to Japan. Under director Paul Stebbings, the troupe specializes in delivering economical yet professional productions to difficult parts of the world and in recent years has offered the only regular touring English-language theater in Japan. Stebbings’ approach to Much Ado About Nothing, one ...
Aussie rockers Switch 3 bring their febrile mash-up of punk, metal and melody to Japan for a tour that includes a three-night trawl of Tokyo’s live houses. Formed in Canberra in 2002, founders brothers Maf and Ben Davis drew on influences from The Cure to Iron Maiden to create an amalgam of styles that combines ...
Deep, oceanic techno will provide the soundtrack for quake benefit Mariana: M6 ‘The Viperfish.’ The event is the brainchild of English DJ, producer and promoter Dave Twomey aka Tr nch, a onetime Japan resident with a deep knowledge of the country’s dance scene. Okinawan artist Iori will be flying in to spin with Twomey alongside ...
A visit to the Taikokan, the traditional Japanese taiko drum museum in Asakusa, is always worthwhile—last time we had it all to ourselves—but the current exhibition of lavishly decorated Silk Road drums doubles the interest. The show, “Gagaku: Handing Ancient Music to Today’s Generation,” looks at the influence of Silk Road culture on the formation ...
Tokyo rock fans can sample rarely heard Kyushu bands courtesy of the second annual Kyushu Pop Festival. The event is produced by Call and Response Records’ Ian Martin, who will also be DJing at Metropolis’ upcoming “Rock Chick’s Revenge” event (June 4). Nine bands are slated to appear, including five making the trip from Kyushu. ...
Despite the resignation of legend Yoshito Ohno, younger exponents of Japan’s avant-garde dance form butoh decided to go ahead with a project that had been in the works since last summer. Hikari Furu Haien (“Light in an Abandoned Garden”) stars and is produced by Takateru Kudo, one of the foremost butoh dancers of his generation ...
African and Afro-Caribbean cultures are in the spotlight for a day of entertainment in Yokohama this Saturday. Rendez Vous en Asie was launched three years ago with an aim to introduce these rich traditions to the people of Asia through art, music and fashion. This year’s third edition features performances from Nigeria’s Gabriel & his ...
Swedish contemporary artist and current Kyoto resident Stefan Larsson presents new works based on his interest in how technology and artificial intelligence relate to emotions, consciousness and nature. AUJIK—also the name of a Shinto cult that worships technology—is a concept Larsson uses as a vehicle for ideas elaborated by futurists Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge ...
Computer music and sampling pioneer Carl Stone presents what he calls his “digital prayer” for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake. Darda was formed out of multiple recordings of the live vocalizations of Makiko Sakurai, a practitioner of the ancient form of Buddhist chanting known as shomyo. Along with Stone, Sakurai, laptop composer Christophe Charles ...
A klatch of Japan’s hippest bands gather at a forest in Ibaraki Prefecture to celebrate all things groovy and arty as the summer festival season gets underway. The most mainstream among the acts are punk icons Eastern Youth and mellow collective Overground Acoustic Underground. Things then get more interesting with the leftfield J-pop doowop of ...
Prima Ballerina Irina Kolesnikova and the St. Petersburg Ballet realize their quake-delayed visit to Japan to perform the Tchaikovsky chestnut Swan Lake. Born in St. Petersburg, Kolesnikova was elevated to the top rank of Prima Ballerina within an unprecedented three years of joining the company. Famed for the extraordinary athleticism she brings to roles from ...
Quintessential jazz singer Cassandra Wilson tows her new album Silver Pony to town for two dates at Tokyo’s poshest supper club. Wilson’s new disc was influenced by her recent move to New Orleans’ legendary French Quarter, as well as by the loss of her mother to Alzheimer’s disease in 2009. Amid the blues and sense ...
The vibes will be even warmer than usual when a slew of Japan’s best house and techno DJs gather at Daikanyama’s Unit for a quake benefit. The bill ranges from three-decade veteran DJ Wada—also known for his highly rated percussive techno outfit Co-Fusion—to young guns like Dublee and Temma Teje and expat Aussie trackmaker, otaku ...
The Yamatane Museum of Art presents its annual spring-themed exhibition of traditional Nihonga painting. This year showcases artists working from the late Edo era right up to the present Heisei age and tells the story of how Japanese artists working with traditional styles and subjects such as flowers and birds came to grips with modernization ...
Struck by the lack of venues for young artists to show their works and the limited number of public art events, Canadian curator Shai Ohayon decided to re-launch his Toronto ArtGig events upon arrival in Tokyo. The first, “Dirty, Dirty! Sex, Sex!” takes place at a club in the gay nightlife district Shinjuku Ni-chome, an ...
In a novel staging, two Shakespeare works become one in the hands of French director George Lavaudant. Sensing a kinship between two of the Bard’s most fantastical plays—A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest—Lavaudant last year created La Tempête, a “grotesque” and “enigmatic” (according to host, the French Institute) work that embeds Midsummer Night’s famous ...
Promoter Creativeman reboots its UK Anthems event as an all-purpose, multinational showcase of up-and-coming bands. Topping the bill for the first Radars are Everything Everything, whose Manchester dance-pop shows the influence of everyone from New Order to Thom Yorke. Dishing out fat disco beats and sleazy synth bass lines are Australia’s Miami Horror, apparently the ...
When David Bintley isn’t busy directing the New National Theater Tokyo, he’s at his original home in Birmingham. The Birmingham Royal Ballet now arrives to present two signature pieces by famed British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, as well as the Tchaikovsky chestnut Sleeping Beauty. The tour launches with a newly scheduled quake benefit on May ...
Storied DJ Francois K has felt the love of Japanese clubbers for years, so it was unlikely an earthquake would keep him away. His and Japan’s mutual love affair doesn’t date quite as far back as Francois’ beginnings at New York’s fabled Studio 54, but the DJ has been a familiar face here for decades. ...
With an exhibition of legendary untrained “art brut” or “outsider” artist Henry Darger underway downtown, the chance now arises to take in works by Japanese outsider artists. The show comes from the Borderless Art Museum NO-MA, run by the Social Welfare Department of Shiga Prefecture. Interestingly, it was curated and first presented at the Musée ...
Japanese and New Zealand musicians head up a benefit for victims of the recent earthquakes in both countries. The event is the brainchild of Sunset Drive, a Kiwi-Japanese garage rock band based in Tokyo, and also features bi-national Kiwi-Japanese songstress Kat McDowell (right). Funk-rock specialists Kinlay Band and Japanese hardcore trio Moja round out the ...
In these unreal times, an exhibition of outsider artworks—among them the illustrated 15,000-page In the Realms of the Unreal—by Chicago recluse Henry Darger seems timely. Darger has been the subject of several previous exhibitions in Japan. The latest show presents works as yet unseen, as well as a peak into the room that he inhabited ...
Created in just over a week, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake or Quakebook may just be the fastest book ever written. The brainchild of Chiba-based blogger and ex-journalist “Our Man in Abiko,” Quakebook was conceived as a way of sharing the feelings and experiences of people amid the disaster; 74 of the book’s ...
With the cancelation of the headliner, American folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, husband-and-wife duo Over the Rhine take first spot on the bill at the third annual Watching the Sky music festival. Named after their historic Cincinnati neighborhood, Over the Rhine (Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist) as heard on last year’s The Long Surrender craft ...
American punk band My Penis are back—yes, believe it—for their 2011 “Fourth Penetration Tour” of Japan. The group is the creation of a technical crew at a 20,000-seat amphitheater, who realized that if they could stage concerts for huge touring acts, they could certainly do it for themselves. My Penis consist of drummer/vocalist Motley One, ...
This concert brings together some of the most talented and eccentric musicians in Japan for what promises to be an evening of unpredictable fun. U-zhaan is one of Japan’s best players of the Indian tabla drums and Rei Harakami is one of its finest keyboardists and producers of distinctive electronica. Together, if their latest YouTube ...
The National Ballet of Japan liked the version of the Arab children’s fable Aladdin that British choreographer David Bintley created for it so much, they invited him to be their new director. Now Bintley reprises his colorful Aladdin, the story of a young ne’er-do-well and his genie who set out to rescue the princess of ...
Following time spent on an arts fellowship in Germany, young Tokyo painter Sai Hashizume returns for her first solo show in Tokyo in six years. “After Image” is a series of enigmatic oil paintings that resemble carefully posed photographs. The series follows a previous one that featured her work, “Red Shoes Diary,” named after the children’s story ...
Drum and bass granddaddy Goldie may have canceled (his pregnant wife forbade him from coming) but his distant musical progeny Silkie will be in Tokyo to help Drum and Bass Sessions celebrate its 15th anniversary. All of 23 years old, London DJ/producer Silkie offers a housier, more soulful take on dubstep, the musical descendant of ...
Perennial favorite of Japanese fans, Ginger of UK retro-rock outfit The Wildhearts looks to return the favors with a one-off earthquake charity gig at Koenji live house High. While not officially disbanding the Wildhearts, Ginger (nee David Wallis) has been putting a suspicious amount of energy into his solo career of late, releasing the album ...
Nothing comes close to matching the Narita Drums Festival’s 700-strong taiko troupe. Despite the martial sound of the instruments, the event at the stately Buddhist Naritasan Shinshoji temple is, in fact, staged as an expression of hopes for peace. The weekend begins Saturday morning with a performance by the full troupe, and then sees over ...
Established in 2010 to aid victims of the Haiti earthquake, the online Charity Print Auctions has been repurposed to help survivors of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami with bidders participating in eBay-style auctions. The Haiti relief effort raised over $30,000 from 1,000 bidders. The diverse groups of photographers involved are making an extra effort this ...
Tokyo gets a taste of Berlin’s cutting-edge techno and decadent nightlife when two stars of the city’s cavernous Berghain club stop in for what promises to be another very long night in Nishi-Azabu. Representing this time round are Berghain residents and Ostgut-Ton imprint stablemates Marcel Fengler and Norman Nodge. Fengler’s take on dance music is ...
The title of this collaborative performance between a group of Japanese musicians and dancer Mizuki Wildenhahn translates, roughly, as “a crane in a garbage dump.” The Hamburg-based “percussive dancer” will improvise to a cast of musicians led by the busy jazz pianist Satoko Fujii. Also in the ensemble are Boston-based tribal percussionist Takaaki Masuko, veteran ...
Storied producer Nile Rodgers returns to Japan—even while recovering from cancer surgery—for another string of dates and edition of his guitar contest. A former member of the house band at Harlem’s fabled Apollo theater, Rodgers went on to top the charts with disco outfit Chic before producing everyone from David Bowie to Madonna. Recent years ...
During the 17th century, Holland amassed untold wealth via the trading of its intrepid merchant class, and the country was at the cutting edge of geography and cartography. This exhibition uses Dutch giant Vermeer’s “Geographer”—shown in Japan for the first time—as the centerpiece for a look behind the Age of Exploration. Also featuring works by ...
Tokyo has a fair bit of expatriate theater, but little devoted to new work. Black Stripe Theater has now chosen to present Caryl Churchill’s meditation on human cloning, which debuted in 2002 and was adapted for television by the BBC and HBO in 2008. A Number follows the tortured relations between a father and his ...
This year’s outdoor party season kicks off next month with the long-running Nagisa festival. Like the headliner, house godfather Frankie Knuckles (pictured), Nagisa is getting a bit long in the tooth. But for dependable foot stomping, booty-shaking beats at a convenient bayside location, it’s hard to top. Backing Knuckles are Mexican post-trance act In Lack ...
Director and choreographer Yang Liping is on a one-woman crusade to save the folk art forms of China. Her last show, Shangri-La, played to full houses in Japan, and her new spectacle showcasing the art and music of Tibet is likely to prove at least as much of a draw. Based on her own travels ...
When young American artist Mickalene Thomas felt she was growing apart from her mother, she did what any of us would do: asked mom to pose nude. The results of this exercise are on show in the intriguing installation “Mama Bush: One of a Kind Two,” at Shinagawa’s Hara Museum. Based in New York, Thomas ...
Japan-based American photographer Vincent Morris and Japanese illustrator Carrie Empire have an artistic meeting of minds over their mutual interest in erotic and gothic-themed imagery in the exhibition “Critical Pieces.” Stubbornly dedicated to film photography, San Franciscan Morris calls his style “art iroke” (iroke means, roughly, “erotic”), and his black-and-white works impart a nostalgic Showa ...
Vintage US punkers The Queers pair with some Aussie punkettes who could be their daughters for a series of shows that culminate with a tribute to Joey Ramone. Co-hosted by punk zine Vamp! and record label Inya Face, the tour sees the two bands on a lightning four-night circuit of Tokyo’s live houses, ending in ...
Japan’s premier venue for the avant-garde dance form butoh, the Setagaya Public Theater, hosts the latest piece from Akaji Maro, leader of the venerable Dairakudakan. Maro calls Ash-man a story of “perishing and rebirth,” while his own life story and heavy tobacco habit provide the backdrop. Founding Dairakudakan in 1972, the 68-year-old Maro is renowned ...
The unstoppable Gypsy music juggernaut rolls on, with French outfit La Caravane Passe following bands like Fanfare Ciocarlia and Gogol Bordello to Japan. Founded by Polish-Romanian-Russian-Jewish Frenchman Toma Feterman, the group marries traditional Gypsy and Klezmer sounds to contemporary French rock ’n’ roll. For a preview of their set—to be accompanied by Swiss DJ unit ...
Yoshinori Niwa calls himself a “social intervention artist” who specializes in shedding light on weighty political situations through humor. As part of “Social Dive,” an exhibition of young, socially aware artists born after 1980, Niwa will use video to explain and illustrate his attempt to reassess history by literally tossing present-day heirs to socialism in ...
Tokyo gets a glimpse of the future of classical music as the winners of the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz perform at Yamaha Hall. Named after the legendary 20th-century Ukrainian pianist, the competition was founded in 1994 and serves as a proving ground for up-and-coming talent. Slated to appear are ...
Oft-ignored Zojoji temple near Tokyo Tower was in fact the center of worship for the Tokugawa shogunate’s family during the Edo Period. In addition to housing the graves of six of the 15 shoguns, the temple also contains 19th-century artist Kazunobu Kano’s massive Buddhist-themed Gohyaku Rakan (“Five-Hundred Arhats”) scrolls, now on show in their entirety ...
Martial arts meet rock ’n’ roll as MMA group Deep invites four heavy metal bands to soundtrack its inaugural Annihilate event. Founded a decade ago by Pride PR honcho Shigeru Saeki, Deep has helped nurture numerous fighters’ careers, including that of current “megaton” champion Yusuke Kawaguchi. The brawlers will compete in a one-off Megaton Grand ...
Photographer Yuriko Takagi has assembled a varied cast for an event that attempts to fuse different fields of art, “focusing on light and shadow.” The lineup for Moukohan Kakumei (literally, “Mongolian Spot Revolution”) includes a “voice performer,” a bell and gong player, a contemporary dancer and a kimono designer, whose bodies will be photographed with ...
There’s more to Holly Cole than “Calling You.” The Canadian torch singer is revered in Japan for her cover of Bob Telson’s Academy Award-winning song, featured on 1992 album Blame It on My Youth. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Cole has been a fixture on the Canadian jazz and pop scenes since debuting in 1989. ...
In his second mixed bill of the season, new NNTT director David Bintley pairs an original work with two modern dance classics. “Bintley’s Choice” launches with the neo-classical leanings of New York City Ballet founder George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, set to music by Bach. Next up is Bintley’s original creation Take Five, choreographed to the ...
Jad Fair, of fabled punk-savant outfit Half Japanese, brings the same amiable primitivism to his art that he does to his music. For the first time, Japan will get to experience both at once as the cult geek hero arrives for a month-long exhibition and a string of gigs. Founded “somewhere around 1975-1977,” Half Japanese ...
After 18 lonely years in Hatsudai, one of Japan’s better contemporary art galleries moves to the center of the action in Roppongi. Wako Works of Art begins its new life at a building that also houses the Ota Fine Arts and Taka Ishii galleries. The relocated Wako opens with “New Space, New Works,” which features ...
Just in case Japan wasn’t gloomy enough already, here come Swans to push folks over the edge. The seminal New York rock band arrive for their first Japan tour in two decades after reforming last year. Created by Michael Gira in 1982, Swans took their avant-garde musical cues from the NYC No Wave scene and ...
In its rush to Westernize, Japan sold off many ukiyo-e prints for a song, often to New England merchants. The upside was that many of the works found refuge from the ravages of earthquakes and wars in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. “The Golden Age of Color Prints” is the second exhibition of ...
All Tomorrow’s Parties—the trendy traveling rock circus that created the concept of artists “curating” lineups themselves—hangs its shingle in Japan for the first time this weekend. Produced in collaboration with Summer Sonic promoters Creativeman, I’ll Be Your Mirror takes its name from the B-side to The Velvet Underground’s original “All Tomorrow’s Parties” 7” single. Appropriately, ...
From Radiohead to “Radioactivity” this summer will push the power supply to the breaking point
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Read more »Three of Japan’s most vaunted post-rock and hardcore acts gang up for an aural assault. Critically hyped psychedelic sludge-core trio Boris are currently on a tear, with three albums out this year including a collaboration with noise god Mertzbow and a world tour to follow this fall. Signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action imprint, screamo act ...
Read more »Takkyu Ishino's famous rave brings the best of Berlin, among other lunacies
Read more »The Swedish gypsy punk collective push their new album
Read more »Though not as well known as figures like Sergio Mendes or João Gilberto and his daughter Bebel, keyboard phenom and multi-instrumentalist Hugo Fattoruso personifies the journey of Latin jazz to the English-speaking world. Born in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, Fattoruso’s unique legacy is to have brought the complex Afro-Uruguayan rhythms of candombe to New York ...
Read more »Cellist Hiromichi Sakamoto and Japan’s avant-garde build a home of their own
Read more »In the 1950s, a group of Japanese architects envisaged an organic process for urban housing they dubbed “Metabolism.” A half-century later, architect Koh Kitayama curated a look at this movement at the 2010 Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale. “Tokyo Metabolizing” presents full-scale houses from firms influenced by Metabolism such as Kitayama, Atelier Bow-Wow and ...
Read more »Stylish singer and Pride promoter Lenne Hardt hosts a gala benefit
Read more »Punk Rock Confidential hosts its annual daylong slamfest
Read more »Get the best of the Carribean just south of Tokyo
Read more »Stars of sleazy electro in Shibuya
Read more »Blending North Africa’s Gnawa people's music with rock and reggae
Read more »Chiba Marine Stadium and Makuhari Messe, Aug 13-14
Read more »A kid-friendly peek at Tokyo's future tallest tower
Read more »The Sexy Stones frontman's new foray
Read more »Ecstatic meets ironic
Read more »Yokohama delivers artistic relief for Japan
Read more »Stately music and dance from Japan’s ancient capital
Read more »Japan’s quake-shocked music fans get a jolt of rock therapy
Read more »Good vibrations
Read more »The Californian artist delivers his new album's fare at Break Away
Read more »The devious one makes his Japan debut
Read more »Flying fish at the Hills
Read more »Take your hat off to this veteran show
Read more »The UK dance unit finds a fleeting paradise on Pala
Read more »The Edo-Tokyo Museum provides a glimpse of the city's rail history
Read more »With a new rock doc and album, is it finally the LA warhorse’s moment?
Read more »Following up on a planned April engagement that was delayed by the quake, veteran Japanese drum and bass DJ Aki hosts two European heavyweights at his decade-old O6S party. Aki witnessed Englishman Shimon and Austrian Disazt (his mother thought his music was a disaster) performing back to back on the Audioporn stage at Austria’s 2010 ...
Read more »Shake a leg
Read more »Salsa from Sweden and some free tickets
Read more »Live soundtracks in supercool arty style
Read more »Among Tokyo’s numerous obscure but intriguing small museums is the Yayoi Museum in Bunkyo Ward. The space is devoted to the works of Taisho-era artist Yumeji Takehisa, famous for his portraits of beauties, but is currently hosting an exhibition focusing on Kasho Takabatake, another artist of the era known for his illustrations of lovely young ...
Read more »Three veteran and three emerging conceptual artists at pace-setting Taro Nasu Gallery
Read more »Another act following up next weekend’s Fuji Rock with a gig in Tokyo is leftfield Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, who impressed audiences last year in gigs with Deerhoof and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Singer Mariam Wallentin and drummer Andreas Werliin met studying improvisation at the University of Gothenburg, and their music joins pairings like ...
Read more »If playing Fuji Rock weren’t enough, German dance music survivor DJ Hell will be following up Japan’s largest rock fest with a gig at one of the country’s hippest clubs. Hell has been a fixture of the German techno scene since he began mixing electro, house and hip-hop in the mid-’80s, and first gained widespread ...
Read more »Re-evaluate modern life
Read more »Climb the whole mountain with Oxfam
Read more »One of Japan’s hippest indie-rock imprints
Read more »DJ Yoshi Horino plays Loop
Read more »Vibraphone player is back after surgery
Read more »The UK post-punk pioneers are back in vogue
Read more »Soul Man plays three dates in Tokyo
Read more »The core of ballet spirit
Read more »90s rave music comes to Tokyo
Read more »Greek masterpieces arrive in Tokyo
Read more »The South American country celebrates its national day with a free concert at Hibiya Park next weekend that will for the first time feature cross-cultural collaborations with Japanese taiko drummers Kuryu and koto ensemble Waon. They will be joining featured Colombian band Maria Mulata, a unit that matches renowned vocalist Diane Hernandez to a rhythmic ...
Read more »Presenting works from European and African travels
Read more »The roots-punk collective heads up Radical Music Network’s 10th anniversary
Read more »Politically outspoken heavy metal
Read more »Commission your artwork by the square inch when American conceptual artist LG Williams tapes his blank rectangle to the wall at unconventional art space The Container. With “Anything But,” Williams playfully questions the values of the contemporary art market. The nomadic Californian plies his trade the world over, creating ironic installations for venues like the ...
Read more »Aside from a sprawling exhibit at the Mori a few years back, Japan sees little in the way of African art. But the first solo show in Japan of renowned Ghanian sculptor El Anatsui is currently touring the country; after stops in Osaka, Hayama and Tsuruoka it sets down for the summer in Saitama. El ...
Read more »“Yuming” may not top the charts like she did with relentless regularity in the ’80s and ’90s, but Yumi Matsutoya still has one of the clearest, brightest voices in the business, and can still fill Tokyo International Forum night after night. As in past years, the 73-date tour for her 36th original album Road Show ...
Read more »For a sampling of Japan’s dance scene, it doesn’t get any bigger or better than longstanding venue Die Pratze’s Dance Ga Mitai! festival. The 13th annual performing arts smorgasbord hosts veterans as well newcomers over six weeks this summer. Among the storied names are butoh company Torifune (pictured) and cutting-edge dance-theater-video troupe Kakuya Ohashi and ...
Read more »Fans of dub, dubstep, drum ‘n’ bass and the like no longer have to go to Croatia to get their fix. Now “Europe’s largest bass music & soundsystem culture festival” comes to Japan. The first installation welcomes storied British soundsystem champion and MC Macka B to the stage alongside a posse of Japan’s better bass ...
Read more »Head of the House of Dior at age 21, founder of a prêt-à-porter empire, the first living fashion designer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a man of notorious appetites, Yves Saint Laurent was larger than life. Photographer Jeanloup Sieff was privileged to have access to the designer and ...
Read more »The young Shinjuku rock squad hits the big time
Read more »Close to 1,000 exhibitors and 100,000 people will gather for the 18th annual Tokyo International Book Fair at Big Site in Odaiba. Held concurrently, the e-Book Expo—which bills itself as the world’s largest trade show for e-books and content—will take up, in a bilingual session, the latest digital rights management issues in the rapidly growing ...
Read more »“The Maestro” of New York house returns to Tokyo for another one of his epic dusk-till-dawn sets. The DJ is known as the impresario behind New York’s legendary Shelter parties, and has also been a frequent visitor to Japan. On this occasion, Regisford makes the event doubly special with the release of Timmy Regisford × ...
Read more »Popular Butoh troupe Dairakudakan usually presents the large-scale works of director Akaji Maro at the Setagaya Public Theater. But the avant-garde dance company also offers the chance to look at the choreographic creations of its members through smaller performances at its black box Kochuten theater in Kichijoji. Next in the series is Hitsuki-Bana (“Day-moon- flower”), ...
Read more »Hip Daikanyama club Unit celebrates its seventh anniversary with a post-punk dream bill. Influential UK band Wire’s angular phrasings and experimental approaches can be heard in the offerings of countless bands to emerge since the ‘80s. With a new album in the form of Red Barked Tree, Wire—in Japan for the first time in seven ...
Read more »Another of the many events reviving the Tokyo Station area as an entertainment hub is Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi. The free exhibition of emerging artists’ work is shown to commuters passing by the Gyoku-dori underground passage that connects Hibiya dori in front of the Imperial Palace to Tokyo Station. Many of the artists are presenting ...
Read more »The Cuban belter and Japanese tribute band stage a Bee Gees-approved quake benefit
Read more »A perennial favorite of Japan, Swiss-born painter Paul Klee (1879-1940) is the subject of a new large-scale exhibition. The focus this time is on the artist’s creative process. Variously described as an Expressionist, Cubist and Surrealist, Klee developed unique methods—and was fastidious about categorizing and recording the process of how each work was made. “Art ...
Read more »Soul diva Marlena Shaw and players on her historic 1974 album Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? reprise a 2009 reunion tour of Japan. The record was a seminal work of “feminist funk” and set Shaw’s mellow, smoky voice amid a cool background of soul-jazz provided by bassist Chuck Rainey, guitarist David T. Walker, keyboardist Larry ...
Read more »London track maker Perc slides into town bearing a new musical missive in the form of his debut long player, Wicker & Steel. The purveyor of blistering beats says the album combines his ardor for vintage British horror films like The Wicker Man with the “steel” of the Birmingham and Berlin techno scenes. Perc’s industrial-grade ...
Read more »Pop metal act Man With A Mission should really be called Wolves With A Mission—they are notorious for performing in wolf masks. The band celebrates its self-titled major label debut release with a “one man” gig next month at storied Shibuya live house Eggman. Combining the rap metal of Linkin Park with the heavy grunge ...
Read more »Since the death of renowned contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch, longtime members of her company have been debuting works of their own. Fabien Prioville last year emerged with his first feature-length solo choreography Jailbreak Mind, a piece that combines high-tech Hollywood video graphics with supple motions that sometimes approach the street slang of break dancing. ...
Read more »Ever with its finger on the cultural zeitgeist, fashion brand Diesel presents the first Japan exhibition of trendy Brooklyn design duo Mogollon. Creating artwork and video for pop figures from Madonna to Fischerspooner, Mogollon was formed in 2004 by American Francisco Lopez (born in 1974, USA) and Venezuelan Monica Brand. “Something Is About to Happen” ...
Read more »Who are the photographers taking up the mantle of great Japanese reportage lens men like Masayuki Yoshinaga and Daido Moriyama? Find out at an upcoming exhibition of prints shot by members of their Resist workshop. The group ranges in age from 23 to 65, and takes in professional photographers and hobbyists. Titling their show “Ryu” ...
Read more »On the 150th Anniversary of Kuniyoshi Utagawa’s death, the renowned ukiyo-e printmaker is seeing a renewed wave of attention. In Japan, his trippy images of ghosts and demons are credited for helping spark the current “specter boom,” while overseas the artist has recently been the subject of retrospectives in New York and London. The new ...
Read more »Rev up for Fuji Rock with like-minded revelers at media personality and DJ Bryan Burton-Lewis’s All-Night Fuji Pre-Party. Burton-Lewis gets the party started each year with his All-Night Fuji Friday night events at the festival. This year’s he’s getting things off the ground even earlier with a blowout at massive bayside club Ageha. Jetting in ...
Read more »A ballet dancer who has performed for Queen Elizabeth and Pope John Paul II will play Prince Siegfried in the Tokyo Ballet’s upcoming performance of Swan Lake. One of the iconic dancers of our era, Italian Roberto Bolle is currently principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater in New York. For his first appearance in ...
Read more »The Jamaican DJ and record retailer talks two decades of reggae in Japan
Read more »A rare visit by a music act from New Zealand’s south island comes in the form of Dunedin’s Die! Die! Die! Fronted by Andrew Wilson, the trio had musical fairy dust sprinkled on them when Steve Albini produced their self-titled debut album in 2005. Their Japan debut seems them flogging their new, third effort Form ...
Read more »Expatriate Scot Campbell Gunn, based in Tokyo since the early ’80s, presents a collection of dramatic photos shot in the African nation of Namibia in 2010 at the Temporary Contemporary Gallery in Tsukishima. Gunn’s sense of color is acute and he captures the linear balance of the Namibian Desert’s barren escarpment. Upcoming projects will feature ...
Read more »This may be the era of cultural fusion, but seldom has such a mellifluous synthesis been created as the combination of Malian kora player Ballake Sissoko and French cellist Vincent Segal. The pair have recently been acclaimed for their album Chamber Music, which sets the ethereal, harp-like sounds of Sissoko’s kora against Segal’s moody, elegant ...
Read more »Those interested in finding out more about the artist who painted the giant mural inside Shibuya station can take advantage of two concurrent exhibitions featuring the work of Taro Okamoto. “The Face is the Universe” looks at Okamoto’s obsession with the face, including his unfinished works “Thunder Man” and “Myth of Fertility,” a companion to ...
Read more »Headbangers looking for a bit of catharsis should dial their GPS systems to Shibuya and Yokohama, where Finnish metalists Children of Bodom and Amorphis will be performing later this month. Perennial favorites in Japan, Children of Bodom are currently touring their hot-off-the-press Relentless Reckless Forever. Even hoarier than Children of Bodom, Amorphis also have a ...
Read more »Hip-hop-influenced hoofer Kentaro!! presents his latest mashup of street and contemporary dance. Since debuting his Electrock Stairs company in 2008, Kentaro has become the toast of Tokyo’s contemporary dance community. This probably has to do with the informal flair and joie de vivre of his choreography, which contrasts starkly with much of the weighty, obsessive ...
Read more »Now is the point at which I touch eternity
Read more »New Tokyo-based intelligent hip-hop and downtempo electronica label Inductive drops its debut release at a party this weekend in Shibuya. Launched by expat French DJ and producer Audace, Inductive hits the ground running with American rapper Chiba the Chemist’s first album, Helmet Jawz. Flaunting dark, atmospheric productions by Audace and fellow trackmakers Crane 11 and ...
Read more »Striking contemporary dancer Yumi Yoshimoto takes the latest in her Flowers series of site-specific “Paradise” performances to a gritty industrial wharf in Kawasaki. Following a performance at a converted junior high school, Yoshimoto moves outdoors, accompanied by frequent partners, avant-garde cellist Hiromichi Sakamoto, German percussionist Kosmas Kapitza and stage installation artist Kazuhiro Ishiyama. “Paradise” in ...
Read more »Hip-hop meets classical at the Apple store
Read more »Ballet dancers from the National Ballet of Japan bust out of their classical straightjackets to try their hand at contemporary dance. Three dancers choreograph three very different works. Kimiho Hulbert presents Almond Blossoms, set to music by French Romantic composer Claude Debussy. Yuzo Ishiyama offers Qwerty, a multimedia performance named for the widely used keyboard ...
Read more »Close friends of Japan, Montreal band Your Favorite Enemies tour the country with their Hope Project, an online letter-writing campaign in which fans penned messages of support to quake survivors. After handing over the thousands of messages they have collected in ten languages to the Japanese Red Cross to be delivered to shelters across Tohoku, ...
Read more »With the Sky Tree due to open next year, Tokyo Tower is pulling out the stops to draw visitors. Underway at the Foot Town building at the base of a tower is the latest dinosaur exhibition to hit Tokyo. “Dinosaurs x Tokyo Tower” comes to the capital from Japan’s largest dinosaur institution, the Fukui Prefectural ...
Read more »Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, May 21
Read more »Metropolis celebrates the Japanese men who rocked the planet
Read more »Expatriate French illustrator and cartoonist Vincent Lefrançois is the subject of an exhibition at the French Institute. Lefrançois is a two-decade resident of Fukuoka and is best known for adapting the work of renowned Japanese manga-ka Jiro Taniguchi into French. “Vagabondages” (“Wanderings”) includes a series of classrooms that Lefrançois painted at the French Institute to ...
Read more »England’s International Theatre Company London (ITCL) brings another compact interpretation of Shakespeare to Japan. Under director Paul Stebbings, the troupe specializes in delivering economical yet professional productions to difficult parts of the world and in recent years has offered the only regular touring English-language theater in Japan. Stebbings’ approach to Much Ado About Nothing, one ...
Read more »Aussie rockers Switch 3 bring their febrile mash-up of punk, metal and melody to Japan for a tour that includes a three-night trawl of Tokyo’s live houses. Formed in Canberra in 2002, founders brothers Maf and Ben Davis drew on influences from The Cure to Iron Maiden to create an amalgam of styles that combines ...
Read more »Deep, oceanic techno will provide the soundtrack for quake benefit Mariana: M6 ‘The Viperfish.’ The event is the brainchild of English DJ, producer and promoter Dave Twomey aka Tr nch, a onetime Japan resident with a deep knowledge of the country’s dance scene. Okinawan artist Iori will be flying in to spin with Twomey alongside ...
Read more »A visit to the Taikokan, the traditional Japanese taiko drum museum in Asakusa, is always worthwhile—last time we had it all to ourselves—but the current exhibition of lavishly decorated Silk Road drums doubles the interest. The show, “Gagaku: Handing Ancient Music to Today’s Generation,” looks at the influence of Silk Road culture on the formation ...
Read more »Tokyo rock fans can sample rarely heard Kyushu bands courtesy of the second annual Kyushu Pop Festival. The event is produced by Call and Response Records’ Ian Martin, who will also be DJing at Metropolis’ upcoming “Rock Chick’s Revenge” event (June 4). Nine bands are slated to appear, including five making the trip from Kyushu. ...
Read more »Despite the resignation of legend Yoshito Ohno, younger exponents of Japan’s avant-garde dance form butoh decided to go ahead with a project that had been in the works since last summer. Hikari Furu Haien (“Light in an Abandoned Garden”) stars and is produced by Takateru Kudo, one of the foremost butoh dancers of his generation ...
Read more »The wandering American songstress heads up this year’s Greenroom fest
Read more »African and Afro-Caribbean cultures are in the spotlight for a day of entertainment in Yokohama this Saturday. Rendez Vous en Asie was launched three years ago with an aim to introduce these rich traditions to the people of Asia through art, music and fashion. This year’s third edition features performances from Nigeria’s Gabriel & his ...
Read more »Swedish contemporary artist and current Kyoto resident Stefan Larsson presents new works based on his interest in how technology and artificial intelligence relate to emotions, consciousness and nature. AUJIK—also the name of a Shinto cult that worships technology—is a concept Larsson uses as a vehicle for ideas elaborated by futurists Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge ...
Read more »Computer music and sampling pioneer Carl Stone presents what he calls his “digital prayer” for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake. Darda was formed out of multiple recordings of the live vocalizations of Makiko Sakurai, a practitioner of the ancient form of Buddhist chanting known as shomyo. Along with Stone, Sakurai, laptop composer Christophe Charles ...
Read more »A klatch of Japan’s hippest bands gather at a forest in Ibaraki Prefecture to celebrate all things groovy and arty as the summer festival season gets underway. The most mainstream among the acts are punk icons Eastern Youth and mellow collective Overground Acoustic Underground. Things then get more interesting with the leftfield J-pop doowop of ...
Read more »Prima Ballerina Irina Kolesnikova and the St. Petersburg Ballet realize their quake-delayed visit to Japan to perform the Tchaikovsky chestnut Swan Lake. Born in St. Petersburg, Kolesnikova was elevated to the top rank of Prima Ballerina within an unprecedented three years of joining the company. Famed for the extraordinary athleticism she brings to roles from ...
Read more »Quintessential jazz singer Cassandra Wilson tows her new album Silver Pony to town for two dates at Tokyo’s poshest supper club. Wilson’s new disc was influenced by her recent move to New Orleans’ legendary French Quarter, as well as by the loss of her mother to Alzheimer’s disease in 2009. Amid the blues and sense ...
Read more »The vibes will be even warmer than usual when a slew of Japan’s best house and techno DJs gather at Daikanyama’s Unit for a quake benefit. The bill ranges from three-decade veteran DJ Wada—also known for his highly rated percussive techno outfit Co-Fusion—to young guns like Dublee and Temma Teje and expat Aussie trackmaker, otaku ...
Read more »The Yamatane Museum of Art presents its annual spring-themed exhibition of traditional Nihonga painting. This year showcases artists working from the late Edo era right up to the present Heisei age and tells the story of how Japanese artists working with traditional styles and subjects such as flowers and birds came to grips with modernization ...
Read more »Struck by the lack of venues for young artists to show their works and the limited number of public art events, Canadian curator Shai Ohayon decided to re-launch his Toronto ArtGig events upon arrival in Tokyo. The first, “Dirty, Dirty! Sex, Sex!” takes place at a club in the gay nightlife district Shinjuku Ni-chome, an ...
Read more »In a novel staging, two Shakespeare works become one in the hands of French director George Lavaudant. Sensing a kinship between two of the Bard’s most fantastical plays—A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest—Lavaudant last year created La Tempête, a “grotesque” and “enigmatic” (according to host, the French Institute) work that embeds Midsummer Night’s famous ...
Read more »Promoter Creativeman reboots its UK Anthems event as an all-purpose, multinational showcase of up-and-coming bands. Topping the bill for the first Radars are Everything Everything, whose Manchester dance-pop shows the influence of everyone from New Order to Thom Yorke. Dishing out fat disco beats and sleazy synth bass lines are Australia’s Miami Horror, apparently the ...
Read more »When David Bintley isn’t busy directing the New National Theater Tokyo, he’s at his original home in Birmingham. The Birmingham Royal Ballet now arrives to present two signature pieces by famed British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, as well as the Tchaikovsky chestnut Sleeping Beauty. The tour launches with a newly scheduled quake benefit on May ...
Read more »Storied DJ Francois K has felt the love of Japanese clubbers for years, so it was unlikely an earthquake would keep him away. His and Japan’s mutual love affair doesn’t date quite as far back as Francois’ beginnings at New York’s fabled Studio 54, but the DJ has been a familiar face here for decades. ...
Read more »With an exhibition of legendary untrained “art brut” or “outsider” artist Henry Darger underway downtown, the chance now arises to take in works by Japanese outsider artists. The show comes from the Borderless Art Museum NO-MA, run by the Social Welfare Department of Shiga Prefecture. Interestingly, it was curated and first presented at the Musée ...
Read more »Japanese and New Zealand musicians head up a benefit for victims of the recent earthquakes in both countries. The event is the brainchild of Sunset Drive, a Kiwi-Japanese garage rock band based in Tokyo, and also features bi-national Kiwi-Japanese songstress Kat McDowell (right). Funk-rock specialists Kinlay Band and Japanese hardcore trio Moja round out the ...
Read more »The New York group debuted its new disc at Tokyo’s first big post-quake festival
Read more »In these unreal times, an exhibition of outsider artworks—among them the illustrated 15,000-page In the Realms of the Unreal—by Chicago recluse Henry Darger seems timely. Darger has been the subject of several previous exhibitions in Japan. The latest show presents works as yet unseen, as well as a peak into the room that he inhabited ...
Read more »Created in just over a week, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake or Quakebook may just be the fastest book ever written. The brainchild of Chiba-based blogger and ex-journalist “Our Man in Abiko,” Quakebook was conceived as a way of sharing the feelings and experiences of people amid the disaster; 74 of the book’s ...
Read more »With the cancelation of the headliner, American folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, husband-and-wife duo Over the Rhine take first spot on the bill at the third annual Watching the Sky music festival. Named after their historic Cincinnati neighborhood, Over the Rhine (Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist) as heard on last year’s The Long Surrender craft ...
Read more »American punk band My Penis are back—yes, believe it—for their 2011 “Fourth Penetration Tour” of Japan. The group is the creation of a technical crew at a 20,000-seat amphitheater, who realized that if they could stage concerts for huge touring acts, they could certainly do it for themselves. My Penis consist of drummer/vocalist Motley One, ...
Read more »Catharsis amid crisis for Japan’s entertainment biz
Read more »This concert brings together some of the most talented and eccentric musicians in Japan for what promises to be an evening of unpredictable fun. U-zhaan is one of Japan’s best players of the Indian tabla drums and Rei Harakami is one of its finest keyboardists and producers of distinctive electronica. Together, if their latest YouTube ...
Read more »The National Ballet of Japan liked the version of the Arab children’s fable Aladdin that British choreographer David Bintley created for it so much, they invited him to be their new director. Now Bintley reprises his colorful Aladdin, the story of a young ne’er-do-well and his genie who set out to rescue the princess of ...
Read more »Following time spent on an arts fellowship in Germany, young Tokyo painter Sai Hashizume returns for her first solo show in Tokyo in six years. “After Image” is a series of enigmatic oil paintings that resemble carefully posed photographs. The series follows a previous one that featured her work, “Red Shoes Diary,” named after the children’s story ...
Read more »Drum and bass granddaddy Goldie may have canceled (his pregnant wife forbade him from coming) but his distant musical progeny Silkie will be in Tokyo to help Drum and Bass Sessions celebrate its 15th anniversary. All of 23 years old, London DJ/producer Silkie offers a housier, more soulful take on dubstep, the musical descendant of ...
Read more »Perennial favorite of Japanese fans, Ginger of UK retro-rock outfit The Wildhearts looks to return the favors with a one-off earthquake charity gig at Koenji live house High. While not officially disbanding the Wildhearts, Ginger (nee David Wallis) has been putting a suspicious amount of energy into his solo career of late, releasing the album ...
Read more »Banding together to support quake victims
Read more »Nothing comes close to matching the Narita Drums Festival’s 700-strong taiko troupe. Despite the martial sound of the instruments, the event at the stately Buddhist Naritasan Shinshoji temple is, in fact, staged as an expression of hopes for peace. The weekend begins Saturday morning with a performance by the full troupe, and then sees over ...
Read more »Established in 2010 to aid victims of the Haiti earthquake, the online Charity Print Auctions has been repurposed to help survivors of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami with bidders participating in eBay-style auctions. The Haiti relief effort raised over $30,000 from 1,000 bidders. The diverse groups of photographers involved are making an extra effort this ...
Read more »Tokyo gets a taste of Berlin’s cutting-edge techno and decadent nightlife when two stars of the city’s cavernous Berghain club stop in for what promises to be another very long night in Nishi-Azabu. Representing this time round are Berghain residents and Ostgut-Ton imprint stablemates Marcel Fengler and Norman Nodge. Fengler’s take on dance music is ...
Read more »The title of this collaborative performance between a group of Japanese musicians and dancer Mizuki Wildenhahn translates, roughly, as “a crane in a garbage dump.” The Hamburg-based “percussive dancer” will improvise to a cast of musicians led by the busy jazz pianist Satoko Fujii. Also in the ensemble are Boston-based tribal percussionist Takaaki Masuko, veteran ...
Read more »Storied producer Nile Rodgers returns to Japan—even while recovering from cancer surgery—for another string of dates and edition of his guitar contest. A former member of the house band at Harlem’s fabled Apollo theater, Rodgers went on to top the charts with disco outfit Chic before producing everyone from David Bowie to Madonna. Recent years ...
Read more »After Mott the Hoople and Queen, the British keyboardist was ready for something different
Read more »During the 17th century, Holland amassed untold wealth via the trading of its intrepid merchant class, and the country was at the cutting edge of geography and cartography. This exhibition uses Dutch giant Vermeer’s “Geographer”—shown in Japan for the first time—as the centerpiece for a look behind the Age of Exploration. Also featuring works by ...
Read more »Tokyo has a fair bit of expatriate theater, but little devoted to new work. Black Stripe Theater has now chosen to present Caryl Churchill’s meditation on human cloning, which debuted in 2002 and was adapted for television by the BBC and HBO in 2008. A Number follows the tortured relations between a father and his ...
Read more »The former model is equal parts pixie and operatic howler
Read more »This year’s outdoor party season kicks off next month with the long-running Nagisa festival. Like the headliner, house godfather Frankie Knuckles (pictured), Nagisa is getting a bit long in the tooth. But for dependable foot stomping, booty-shaking beats at a convenient bayside location, it’s hard to top. Backing Knuckles are Mexican post-trance act In Lack ...
Read more »Director and choreographer Yang Liping is on a one-woman crusade to save the folk art forms of China. Her last show, Shangri-La, played to full houses in Japan, and her new spectacle showcasing the art and music of Tibet is likely to prove at least as much of a draw. Based on her own travels ...
Read more »When young American artist Mickalene Thomas felt she was growing apart from her mother, she did what any of us would do: asked mom to pose nude. The results of this exercise are on show in the intriguing installation “Mama Bush: One of a Kind Two,” at Shinagawa’s Hara Museum. Based in New York, Thomas ...
Read more »Japan-based American photographer Vincent Morris and Japanese illustrator Carrie Empire have an artistic meeting of minds over their mutual interest in erotic and gothic-themed imagery in the exhibition “Critical Pieces.” Stubbornly dedicated to film photography, San Franciscan Morris calls his style “art iroke” (iroke means, roughly, “erotic”), and his black-and-white works impart a nostalgic Showa ...
Read more »Vintage US punkers The Queers pair with some Aussie punkettes who could be their daughters for a series of shows that culminate with a tribute to Joey Ramone. Co-hosted by punk zine Vamp! and record label Inya Face, the tour sees the two bands on a lightning four-night circuit of Tokyo’s live houses, ending in ...
Read more »Japan’s premier venue for the avant-garde dance form butoh, the Setagaya Public Theater, hosts the latest piece from Akaji Maro, leader of the venerable Dairakudakan. Maro calls Ash-man a story of “perishing and rebirth,” while his own life story and heavy tobacco habit provide the backdrop. Founding Dairakudakan in 1972, the 68-year-old Maro is renowned ...
Read more »The unstoppable Gypsy music juggernaut rolls on, with French outfit La Caravane Passe following bands like Fanfare Ciocarlia and Gogol Bordello to Japan. Founded by Polish-Romanian-Russian-Jewish Frenchman Toma Feterman, the group marries traditional Gypsy and Klezmer sounds to contemporary French rock ’n’ roll. For a preview of their set—to be accompanied by Swiss DJ unit ...
Read more »Yoshinori Niwa calls himself a “social intervention artist” who specializes in shedding light on weighty political situations through humor. As part of “Social Dive,” an exhibition of young, socially aware artists born after 1980, Niwa will use video to explain and illustrate his attempt to reassess history by literally tossing present-day heirs to socialism in ...
Read more »Tokyo gets a glimpse of the future of classical music as the winners of the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz perform at Yamaha Hall. Named after the legendary 20th-century Ukrainian pianist, the competition was founded in 1994 and serves as a proving ground for up-and-coming talent. Slated to appear are ...
Read more »Oft-ignored Zojoji temple near Tokyo Tower was in fact the center of worship for the Tokugawa shogunate’s family during the Edo Period. In addition to housing the graves of six of the 15 shoguns, the temple also contains 19th-century artist Kazunobu Kano’s massive Buddhist-themed Gohyaku Rakan (“Five-Hundred Arhats”) scrolls, now on show in their entirety ...
Read more »The Travis frontman goes it alone
Read more »Martial arts meet rock ’n’ roll as MMA group Deep invites four heavy metal bands to soundtrack its inaugural Annihilate event. Founded a decade ago by Pride PR honcho Shigeru Saeki, Deep has helped nurture numerous fighters’ careers, including that of current “megaton” champion Yusuke Kawaguchi. The brawlers will compete in a one-off Megaton Grand ...
Read more »Photographer Yuriko Takagi has assembled a varied cast for an event that attempts to fuse different fields of art, “focusing on light and shadow.” The lineup for Moukohan Kakumei (literally, “Mongolian Spot Revolution”) includes a “voice performer,” a bell and gong player, a contemporary dancer and a kimono designer, whose bodies will be photographed with ...
Read more »There’s more to Holly Cole than “Calling You.” The Canadian torch singer is revered in Japan for her cover of Bob Telson’s Academy Award-winning song, featured on 1992 album Blame It on My Youth. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Cole has been a fixture on the Canadian jazz and pop scenes since debuting in 1989. ...
Read more »In his second mixed bill of the season, new NNTT director David Bintley pairs an original work with two modern dance classics. “Bintley’s Choice” launches with the neo-classical leanings of New York City Ballet founder George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, set to music by Bach. Next up is Bintley’s original creation Take Five, choreographed to the ...
Read more »Jad Fair, of fabled punk-savant outfit Half Japanese, brings the same amiable primitivism to his art that he does to his music. For the first time, Japan will get to experience both at once as the cult geek hero arrives for a month-long exhibition and a string of gigs. Founded “somewhere around 1975-1977,” Half Japanese ...
Read more »After 18 lonely years in Hatsudai, one of Japan’s better contemporary art galleries moves to the center of the action in Roppongi. Wako Works of Art begins its new life at a building that also houses the Ota Fine Arts and Taka Ishii galleries. The relocated Wako opens with “New Space, New Works,” which features ...
Read more »Just in case Japan wasn’t gloomy enough already, here come Swans to push folks over the edge. The seminal New York rock band arrive for their first Japan tour in two decades after reforming last year. Created by Michael Gira in 1982, Swans took their avant-garde musical cues from the NYC No Wave scene and ...
Read more »In its rush to Westernize, Japan sold off many ukiyo-e prints for a song, often to New England merchants. The upside was that many of the works found refuge from the ravages of earthquakes and wars in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. “The Golden Age of Color Prints” is the second exhibition of ...
Read more »All Tomorrow’s Parties—the trendy traveling rock circus that created the concept of artists “curating” lineups themselves—hangs its shingle in Japan for the first time this weekend. Produced in collaboration with Summer Sonic promoters Creativeman, I’ll Be Your Mirror takes its name from the B-side to The Velvet Underground’s original “All Tomorrow’s Parties” 7” single. Appropriately, ...
Read more »The rocker-activist puts his money on the line for the environment
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