JAPAN FOUNDATION WORLDWIDE

The Japan Foundation, Jakarta presents various activities to introduce Japanese culture during the year 2008, the 50th year since the establishment of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and Japan. As six months of this Golden Year of Friendship has already passed, we would like to review the first half of the year.

At the opening ceremony on January 20, graced with the presence of Their Imperial Highnesses Prince and Princess Akishino and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife, tsugaru shamisen player Kazuhiro Fukui gave a powerful solo performance. Their Imperial Highnesses Prince and Princess enjoyed the performance so much that they happened to talk to Mr. Fukui directly after performance, which warmed up this kick-off event. Numerous events including Japanese Toys exhibition, Counter-photography exhibition, the Asian Cartoon Exhibition, solo performance of Kim Manri, a leader of Performance Troupe TAIHEN, and lecture and demonstration on Kabuki dance, followed and each one of them was well received.

KITA!! Japanese Artists Meet Indonesia, a project to introduce Japanese contemporary art, was started at the grand opening on April 18 and continued till May 18 in Jogjakarta, Bandung and Jakarta. This project introduced 24 artists in different genres and received major public response.

To conclude the first half of the year, “We’re Gonna Go Dancing ! Indonesia Tour" was organized by Japan Contemporary Dance Network, co-organized by the Japan Foundation, Jakarta, and supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Each of five performances in four cities in Indonesia gathered much audience and some could not even enter the site. The tour turned out to be appropriate to conclude the first half of the year.

More events are scheduled to conclude the year in December, and JF staff members are committed themselves to make the latter half of the year fulfilling.

 

In a retrospective of Tatsuya Nakadai, a legendary Japanese actor in the golden age of Japanese cinema, 27 films were shown in New York for seven weeks from June to August.

News conference after preview of the Human Condition, an antiwar epic at Film Forum

Mr. Nakadai stayed in the U.S. for the first week of the retrospective with Ms. Teruyo Nogami, a producer and right hand of director Akira Kurosawa. His devotion to cinema, told with Ms. Nogami after film screening at Film Forum, main venue in the SoHo, Japan Society in New York, the National Gallery of Art and the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., aroused American audience’s sympathy. Each event in the retrospective was well attended and major newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal ran a story of it. The retrospective continued to be successful after Mr. Nakadai’s returning home and attracted cumulative 11,000 visitors to Film Forum and 2,000 visitors to other venues, totaling 13,000 visitors.

A letter from Ms. Nogami after her returning home was the best encouragement of all for us. It said, “What made us most happy of all is there are still so many moviegoing public in New York and the organizers love movies.”

The retrospective was co-organized by Film Forum in New York and the Japan Foundation, and supported by quite a few organizations and volunteers.

Performance during April – July 2008 were a mixture of ones jointly planned by Japan and France, contemporary performance and traditional arts, appropriate for the 150th anniversary of Franco-Japanese relations. Included were No Opera “Sumidagawa,” contemporary drama Exchange by Yubiwa Hotel, Contemporary Dance "Sai - Four Seasons and a Cycle of Life,” unique concert of Japanese Koto Player Mieko Miyazaki and a Corsian Vocal Group, concert of girls lap unit HALCALI on the Fête de la musique, and Kyogen Theatre by Shime and Ippei Shigeyama in early July.

A cinema screening, not carried out for a while, will be started on September 9. The screening will introduces a history of Shochiku, one of the greatest studios in Japan, showing 23 movies including silent and contemporary movies. The vagabond Tora-san movies are included in those movies. On September 12, a little novel “When Poesy Meets Kyogen” will be performed. A performance unit Chori/Doji, started in 2005, depicts a love story over a thousand years by recitation of poems and Kyogen. Then on September 18 and 19, Hirohisa Koyama, a celebrated chef, will be invited to demonstrate how to make bento, Japanese traditional cuisine. He will also lecture on the theme on September 20. And we are more than happy to host annual, familiar JAZZ IN JAPAN in three consecutive evenings during September 25 to 27. This year, Masaru Imada Quartet, SALLE GAVEAU led by Natsuki Kido, and Otomo Trio will be invited to perform. You can expect Maison de la culture du Japon a Paris to organize a barrage of various events after JAZZ.

Please be reminded that Maison de la culture du Japon a Paris is closed during August and even the office will be closed on the third week of August.