2010-2011 EVENTS ARCHIVE

November 23 Yuzo Ishiyama Artist Talk and Video Screening: QWERTY
November 2 Koki Tanaka Artist Talk and Video Screening
October 27 An Evening of Classical Guitar, Flute and Violin from Japan
October 1 Sayonara Hashima: Artist talk and film screening
May 26-July 30 Exhibition: Tenugui Towels: Design Excellence in Japanese Daily Life
Tenugui on the Kabuki Stage: Lecture by Toshi Aoyagi
June 18, 2010 Found in Translation Festival: Lecture by Author Ryoko Sekiguchi
June 3, 2010 Tenugui Lecture by Kazuhiro Kato of Kamawanu Tenugui
May 3, 2010 Japan Canada Authors' Forum: Vancouver Event
April 30, 2010 Japan-Canada Authors' Forum: Munk School, Toronto
April 29, 2010 Japan-Canada Authors' Forum: JCCC, Toronto
April 27, 2010 Japan-Canada Authors' Forum: Montreal Event

YUZO ISHIYAMA, choreographer/multimedia performance artist:
Talk and video screening: QWERTY

Date: Tuesday, November 23, 6:30 – 8:00 pm (doors 6:00)
Location: The Japan Foundation, Toronto
Address: 131 Bloor St. W., 2nd floor of the Colonnade Building
Language: In Japanese with English interpreter
Admission: free
RSVP Required: http://www.jftor.org/whatson/rsvp.php or (416) 966-1600 x102

Previously presented at Panorama Festival (Rio de Janeiro / Brazil), Dance Exhibition 2006 at the New National Theatre Tokyo (Japan) and digital art festival Bains Numériques #2 (Enghien-les-Bains / France), Yuzo Ishiyama’s dance piece QWERTY will be performed at CINARS (international performing arts market in Montreal) on November 17, 2010 as a part of the official showcase. The current version of QWERTY is more charged with intensity by the permeation of digital technology. QWERTY is a performance which reflects insight into confusion/hesitation and the re-recognition of the human body. This piece clearly embraces Ishiyama’s point of view that the human body exists on the same extended line as digital media. Sound, visual images, lighting and human bodies are equally ‘performers’ in QWERTY. Yuzo Ishiyama will make a special stopover in Toronto on the way back from Montreal to present a video of the performance and speak about his work.

Website of Yuzo Ishiyama's group A.P.I.: www.info-api.com

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KOKI TANAKA:
Artist talk and video screening
"A Haircut by 9 Hairdressers at Once (second attempt)"

Cause is Effect, 2005, DVD/Light My Fire, 2002, DVD

Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. (doors 6:00)
Location: The Japan Foundation, Toronto
Address: 131 Bloor St. W., 2nd floor of the Colonnade Building
Language: English
Admission: free
RSVP Required: jftor.org/whatson/rsvp.php or (416) 966-1600 x102

Drawing from his experience as artist-in-residence at Toronto’s YYZ gallery earlier this year, video artist Koki Tanaka continues to develop ideas inspired by his stay here. While in Toronto, Tanaka noted how the wide variety of international hair salons—Chinese, Portuguese, Indian, Jamaican, Japanese, old-style, hip-style, etc.—reflects the multicultural character of the city. During a recent stay in San Francisco, Tanaka observed the same thing, and created the video "A Haircut by 9 Hairdressers at Once (second attempt)" (duration 30 minutes). On Tuesday, November 2, at the Japan Foundation, he will show this new video and discuss his works and influences.

Koki Tanaka's website

Tanaka’s work is currently on display at the Japan Foundation, Toronto as part of the exhibition “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art.” “Winter Garden” curator Midori Matsui describes his videos as documents of “transformations of banal everyday objects, motivated by his playful interactions with them.”

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An Evening of
Classical Guitar, Flute and Violin from Japan

Presented by the Japan Foundation
in co-operation with the Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto

Yasuji Ohagi (guitar)
Kazunori Seo (flute)
Gentaro Kagitomi (violin)

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Glenn Gould Studio
250 Front Street West, Toronto

The most sought-after Japanese performers bring their excellence in music making to Toronto in this unique ensemble of guitar, flute and violin. The program reflects the poetic hearts of the musicians as global travellers, encompassing works from Europe, Latin America, and Japan.

This concert is part of a cross-Canada tour organized by the Japan Foundation.

Concert program:

Ravi Shankar: L'Aube Enchantée (The Enchanted Dawn)
Eugène Ysaÿe: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 6
Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances
Friedrich Kuhlau: Fantaisie on a Theme from "Don Giovanni"
Leo Brouwer: Elogio de la Danza (Praise of the Dance)
Toru Takemitsu: Toward the Sea
Astor Piazzolla: Historia del Tango
Jacques Bondon: Les Folklores Imaginaires Suite No. 2

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A film and discussion presented by
the Goethe-Institut Toronto and OCAD University
Co-presented by the Japan Foundation


NINA FISCHER AND MAROAN EL SANI

Date: Friday, October 1
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 pm (doors open at 6:30)
Sayonara Hashima, 17 min, 2009
Courtesy the artists and Galerie EIGEN+ART, Leipzig/Berlin

Berlin-based artists Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani present their film Sayonara Hashima, followed by a discussion of their work.

Sayonara Hashima takes as its subject Hashima, an island off the coast of Japan with a fascinating history. Entirely manmade, the concrete island served as a coal-mining operation that, at its peak of operation, housed some 5000 inhabitants, at that time the most densely populated place on earth. Abandoned in 1974, when its mineral resources had been exhausted, the island has since taken on a ghostly, mythic status in the national imagination, aided by its appearance in a Battle Royale II, a recent Japanese adventure/science fiction film. Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani explore the changing roles of the island throughout its history, capturing the accounts not only of former inhabitants but also the current impressions of high school students of a place they know only indirectly through representations. As with many of Fischer & El Sani’s previous projects, Sayonara Hashima asks how memory operates, how a site wears its history, both physically and metaphorically.

About the Artists:

The Berlin-based art duo Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani use film, photography, mixed-media installations and architecture to explore failed utopias. Also holding professorships in Japan, Fischer & el Sani have been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the Gwangju Biennale, the International Istanbul Biennale and the Sonar Sound Festival Tokyo. They illuminate urban culture, layers of civilization, life and decay, before turning to something completely different.

“Fischer and el Sani’s works radiate a willingness to submit everyday social phenomena to a roguish scrutiny. Their phenomena-hopping approach, which constantly switches contexts at the level of content and media, blows the artist-as-author into debris.” (Frieze, 1999)

Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani are the CROSSMEDIAL Artists in Residence 2010.

More info:

www.fischerelsani.net

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Tenugui Towels:
Design Excellence in Japanese Daily Life

May 26 - July 30, 2010

Exhibition presented by The Japan Foundation
In association with Kamawanu Co. Ltd., Tokyo

TENUGUI are towels made of bleached cotton, approximately 34 cm wide and 90 cm in length.  The word literally means “a hand-wiping cloth”.  In the 17th century, when the production of cotton increased dramatically in Japan, people benefited from the rich supply of cotton cloth for use in their daily lives.  Individual towels were used for a remarkable number of purposes; not only for wiping and cleaning, but also for wrapping and wearing, and even as advertising tools.

To meet the various needs of special occasions throughout the four seasons and the individual personalities of each owner, the Japanese developed a wide range of designs on the surface of the cloth.  In the Meiji period (1868-1912), under the influence of the Western Industrial Revolution, the production of TENUGUI entered a new era.  The invention of Chusen, an innovative dye-pouring technique, resulted in increased productivity and widened design possibilities, allowing designers to incorporate multiple colours and sensitive shading. These new techniques were applied to traditional designs borrowed from the fashion world of Kimono and theatre costumes as well as newly invented ideas.

Some are elaborate while others are transparently simple.　Whimsical humor, refined sophistication, and modern-looking bold composition …With over two hundred towels on display, this colourful exhibition demonstrates the endless creativity in TENUGUI.

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Tenugui on the Kabuki Stage Talk and video presentation by Toshi Aoyagi Program Officer, The Japan Foundation, Toronto

Date: July 15, 2010 (Thursday) 6:30-8:30 P.M.
Location: The Japan Foundation, Toronto, 131 Bloor St. W., Suite 213
Admission: Free
Reservation Required: www.jftor.org/whatson/rsvp.php or 416.966.1600 x.229

Complementing Tenugui Towels: Design Excellence in Japanese Daily Life
May 26 ~ July 30, 2010 at The Japan Foundation, Toronto

Tenugui have been one of the most expressive, effective props on the Kabuki stage. Some male characters hide their faces or wrap their heads, but the special style of the wrappings enhances the actors’ handsome features with a framing effect. Female characters, traditionally performed by male actors, take particular advantage of Tenugui in their dance programs. Simple cloths are imaginatively transformed into various objects, such as letters and water. In other scenes, Tenugui’s length assists the actors in conjuring up their feminine sensuality.

The Found in Translation literary festival and The Japan Foundation
present
A talk by writer Ryoko Sekiguchi

"Language, Literature and Translation:
Why We Write in the Language of Others"

Date: Friday, June 18, 8:00 p.m. (Doors open at 7:30)
Location: The Japan Foundation, Toronto, 131 Bloor St. West, 2nd Floor
Admission: Free
Reservation required: www.jftor.org/whatson/rsvp.php or (416) 966-1600 x103
In Japanese with English Translation

As part of the literary festival Found in Translation, which features authors who write in a language that is not their native tongue, Japanese-born poet Ryoko Sekiguchi will visit the Japan Foundation, Toronto, to talk about her career as a francophone author. Ms. Sekiguchi will also discuss the situation of francophonie, writers of foreign origin who write in Japanese, and various cases of writers who have reason to write in the language of others.

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A Literary Evening
with
Takashi Atoda and Jiro Asada

Talks by Leading Japanese Authors
at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre

Takashi Atoda and Jiro Asada, two of Japan's most respected contemporary authors, will discuss their works. The talks will be conducted in Japanese with English interpretation.

Date: Thursday April 29, 2010, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Location: Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC), 6 Garamond Ct., Toronto
Admission: THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT

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Howl's Moving Language/La langue ambulante:
Voices from Japan, Quebec and Canada
Tuesday, April 27, 2010

J.A. de Seve Cinema at Concordia University
1400 de Maisonneuve West
Montreal, Quebec
Admission: Free

This event will be conducted in Japanese and French, with some English commentary.

This forum brings together popular Japanese authors and award-winning Canadian writers for a lively discussion of the transformation and power of language in Japan, Quebec and Canada.

Takashi Atoda, President of PEN Japan and author of The Square Persimmon and Other Stories, and Eto Mori, beloved writer of young adult fiction including Kaze ni maiagaru biniru shito (The Plastic Sheet that Flies in the Wind), will speak about their works and give their insights into how contemporary Japanese language is changing. This will be followed by commentary and discussion with Governor-General Literary Award-winning poet and President of PEN Quebec, Emile Martel, and Mark Abley, author of Spoken Here, about the disappearance of fragile languages and The Prodigal Tongue, about the increasing dominance of global English.

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