Rokuro Umewaka
Leading Actor, Master, The Umewaka Family, Kanze School

In August 2002, a candle-Noh performance was held in New York City mourning the victims of September 11th. Rokuro Umewaka, the leader of the Umewaka Family of the Kanze School of Japanese Noh theater, directed the performance and, on both days of the two-day performance, himself danced Inori (A Prayer). Rokuro created this piece just for this performance, and it will not be danced again. Watching the dance, I was moved as I had never been before. On the first day I felt Rokuro's anger and sadness, but on the second day I felt his sincere heart, praying for peace, overcoming those feelings. After that, to again hear Rokuro's pure voice became my own prayer. At the end of 2004, when Japan Society invited the Umewaka Family to perform The First Noh and Kyogen Seen by Americans, my wish finally came true.

Photo: Takako Nakasu

Unity of Geniuses
Isamu Noguchi vs. Martha Graham

Scenery can play many roles when a dancer stands onstage. For the dancer, it might represent a landscape, her own body, or insight into herself. Sets that correspond to a story and even change in meaning as the dance develops stimulate a choreographer's creativity, inspire dancers, and expand the audience's viewpoint. A wonderful example is the collaboration of Isamu Noguchi and Martha Graham. Noguchi's sets are abstract works of modern art. Interacting with Graham dancers, however, transforms them into ancient palaces, fires of jealousy, or human beings. Amazingly, these two geniuses' collaborations remain fresh beyond time; as spectators mature, the works grow ever deeper and richer. In this, we see the essence of great art. In celebration of the centennial of Isamu Noguchi's birth, New York's Noguchi Museum is currently exhibiting ﾒNoguchi and Graham: Selected Works for Dance.ﾓ Each Noguchi stage set is accompanied by Graham's own hand-drawn sketch and notes instructing how to place setpieces onstage. These sets are complete only when they stand surrounded by the sweat and pounding breathing of dancers and by the applause of audiences.

Photo: Arnold Eagle

Susan Sontag on Japanese Film, Part2

This autumn, the Japan Society showed its second Japanese film festival curated by Susan Sontag, the distinguished writer, film director, and radical cultural critic. Sontag passed away in New York on December 28, 2004, aged 71. Her many published writings include Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, In America, and Regarding the Pain of Others. A fan of Japanese film, Sontag praised much of it as psychologically deep and penetrating. The previous series was wildly successful, and so ten more of her rigorously chosen selections were screened in recent months

Photo: A Page of Madness 1926







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　Dance

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Merce Cunningham Dance Company
New York City Ballet
Rennie Harris's Legends of Hip-Hop
Ralph Lemon