Performing Arts Japan
List of Awardees 2005-2006

The Japan Foundation is pleased to announce grant awards totaling $270,000 to 10 presenters
and artists in the United States through the Performing Arts Japan (PAJ) program for the fiscal
2005-2006. The grant recipients are listed below. (Please contact the Japan Foundation,
New York for further information and finalized tour dates.)

PAJ Touring Grant awards 2005-2006
Total projects: 7
Total funds allocated: $205,000
Grant amounts: $10,000 - $45,000_____________________________________

Bang on a Can (Brooklyn, NY) for a two-city U.S. tour of Bang on a Can All-Stars(www.bangonacan.org), featuring the work of Somei Satoh, Japanese composer of thepostwar generation. Satoh’s new piece, Shu, was commissioned by Bang on a Can with thesupport of the Japan Foundation through PAJ 2002-2003. The work had its world premiere in
New York at Japan Society in February 2004.
Tour Dates: May 1 – July 23, 2005
Tour Locations: University of Maine (Orno, ME); MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA)
Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA) for an eleven-city North-American tour of Yukimi Kambe
Viol Consort (www.ykvc.jp), founded in 1983 by Yukimi Kambe to perform both traditional
repertoire and contemporary music for the viola da gamba (viol), a European stringed
instrument similar to a modern cello, which was first introduced to Japan as early as 16thCentury. The Consort’s tour will include public performances and outreach activities.
Tour Dates: March 10 – April 8, 2006
Tour Locations: Capital University (Columbus, OH); University of Louisville (Louisville,KY); Arizona Early Music Society (Tucson, AZ); St. Cecilia Concert Series (Halifax, NS);
Toronto Early Music Society (Toronto, ON); Emory University (Atlanta, GA); Yale University(New Haven, CT); Seattle Asian Art Museum (Seattle, WA); Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA);Santa Cruz Baroque Festival (Santa Cruz, CA); Early Music Now (Milwaukee, MN)
IUP Research Institute/The Lively Arts at IUP (Indiana, PA) for a twelve-city U.S. tour ofNitta Oyako (www.nittaoyako.com), a duo of Hiroshi Nitta (father) and Masahiro Nitta (son),both playing the Tsugaru shamisen, a three-stringed Japanese lute endemic to the northern partof Japan. At each tour location, the duo will engage in public performance as well asworkshops, lectures/demonstrations, and open rehearsals.
Tour Dates: April 14 – May 6, 2005
Tour Locations: Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Indiana, PA); Latrobe Area Senior HighSchool Center for Creativity (Latrobe, PA); Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA); Lafayette
6College (Easton, PA); Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Punxsutawney, PA); Japan America
Society of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN); Lotus World Music and Arts Festival (Bloomington, IN);
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, DC); Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater(New York, NY); Frostburg State University (Frostburg, MD); Warren County School District(Warren, PA); Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts (Harrisburg, PA)
Japan Society, Inc. (New York, NY) for a six-city North American tour of one of the mostinternationally acclaimed Butoh artists of our time, Ko Murobushi and Ko & Edge Co.
(www.murobushi.com) in Handsome Blue Sky (Bibo no Aozora), which was premiered at theJADE 2003 Memorial for Tatsumi Hijikata. The work will have its North American premiere
during the tour. Workshops and other related events are planned at each touring venue.
Tour Dates: September 17 – October 8, 2005
Tour Locations: Towson University (Towson, MD); Japan Society (New York, NY); Flynn
Center for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT); Usine C (Montreal, QC); On theBoards/Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance (Seattle, WA); Kirkland Performance
Center (Kirkland, WA)
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) (Portland, OR) for a three-city U.S. tour ofJapanese dancer/choreographer, Kota Yamazaki’s Fluid hug-hug Co. (www.jcdn.org). The
tour will include performances of the company’s work, as well as residencies for community
outreach, educational programs, master classes and lectures/demonstrations. In Portland, thecompany’s performance will be in addition to the presentation of Yamazaki’s choreography ofFAGAALA, the result of his creative partnership with Senegalese choreographer, Germaine
Acogny, and her Compagnie Jant-Bi.
Tour Dates: September 7 – October 8, 2005
Tour Locations: Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR); North Fourth Art
Center (Albuquerque, NM); Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
Tradex, a National Organization for Traditional Artists Exchange (Honolulu, HI) for an
eleven-city U.S. tour of Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble East & West (www.taikoarts.com)
that furthers an appreciation of taiko – the Japanese art of drumming – and continues todevelop this time-honored tradition. The tour will bring together professional musicians ofboth Japanese and Western instruments in an eclectic collaboration of traditional rhythms andmodern compositions.
Tour Dates: October 26 – November 19, 2005
Tour Locations: Mu Performing Arts (Minneapolis, MN); Clarice Smith Performing Arts
Center/University of Maryland (College Park, MD); Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA);American University (Washington, DC); St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN); Salt LakeJapanese American Citizens League (Salt Lake, UT); Stanford University (Stanford, CA);
Maui Arts & Cultural Center (Maui, HI); University of Hawaii at Hilo (Hilo, HI); Kahilu
Theatre Foundation (Kamuela, HI); University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, HI)
UCLA Live (Los Angeles, CA) for a five-city North American tour of Pappa Tarahumara(www.pappa-tara.com), a leading Japanese interdisciplinary performance company led byHiroshi Koike, to present Ship in a View, a free-flowing panorama of images ranging from a7seaside town in the 1960’s, when postwar Japan was experiencing a rapid industrialization, to afuturistic scene of dazzling movement and mysteriously beautiful imagery.
Tour Dates: January 30 – February 25, 2006
Tour Locations: UCLA Live/University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA);
National Arts Centre (Ottawa, ON); Harbourfront Centre (Toronto, ON); University MusicalSociety/University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI); Wexner Center for the Performing Arts/The
Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)

PAJ Collaboration Grant awards 2005-2006
Total projects: 3
Total funds allocated: $65,000
Grant amounts: $20,000 - $25,000_____________________________________Fiji Theater Company, Inc. a.k.a. Ping Chong & Company, Inc. (New York, NY) incollaboration with Kani Public Arts Center (Kani, Gifu Prefecture, Japan) and Conversation &Company (Tokyo, Japan) will hold residencies in Japan and the U.S. to develop Kwaidan 3, thethird installment of Ping Chong’s full-length puppet theatre series, which is scheduled topremiere in the fall of 2007. Kwaidan 3 will be conceived, written and directed by Ping
Chong (www.pingchong.org), along with the artists Randy Ward (light & set design) andAtsushi Yamamoto (puppet design & construction), to become a multidisciplinary puppet
theatre work featuring a traditional Japanese ghost story, a story adapted from a Middle Easternsource, and an original tale of the macabre by Ping Chong.
Project Period: April 2005 – March 2006
Inta, Inc. (New York, NY) for a collaboration among Eiko & Koma
(www.eikoandkoma.org) (choreographers/dancers), Sam-Ang Sam (Cambodian-Americancomposer) and David Ferri (lighting designer) to develop The Reyum Project: Mourning(tentative title), a multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural and cross-generational performance workthat explores contrasting notions of “Asian-ness” and its relationship to each artist’s culturalidentity. Young Cambodian men will participate as performers and visual artists. During theyear-long creative phase of the project, Eiko & Koma will conduct workshops, master classes
and “work-in-progress” showings in Cambodia and the U.S. The new work is scheduled topremiere and subsequently tour the U.S. in the spring of 2006.
Project Period: April 2005 – March 2006
New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) (New York, NY) for a new contemporary dancework What We When We, directed by choreographer/performing artist, Yasuko Yokoshi(www.jcdn.org) that explores the emotional dynamics of male/female conversations inRaymond Carver’s short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The
movement will be choreographed utilizing traditional Japanese kabuki dance vocabulary andaesthetics. The project is in collaboration with Masumi Seyama, a master of Kanjuro
Fujima-style Kabuki dance. Yokoshi has invited four contemporary Japanese dancers basedin New York City to participate in the project. After several residencies and8

“work-in-progress” showings in Japan and the U.S., the new work is scheduled to premiere in
New York at Danspace Project at the end of March 2006.
Project Period: April 2005 – March 2006

The grant applications for the fiscal 2005-2006 were reviewed by the PAJ Advisory Committee,
which is comprised of one Japanese consultant and ten performing arts specialists fromthroughout the United States. The committee makes its award recommendations to JapanFoundation Headquarters in Tokyo.

PAJ Advisory Committee Members (as of December 2004)
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Dr. Michael Blachly (Director, University of Florida Performing Arts)
Ms. Rachel Cooper (Director, Cultural Programs and Performing Arts, Asia Society)
Mr. Lane Czaplinski (Artistic Director, On The Boards/Behnke Center for ContemporaryPerformance)
Ms. Margaret Lawrence (Director of Programming, Hopkins Center for the Arts,Dartmouth College)
Ms. Cora Mirikitani (Executive Director, Center for Cultural Innovation)
Mr. Phillip Reynolds (Executive Director, The Dance Center of Columbia CollegeChicago)Dr. Michael Ross (Executive Director, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Ms. Julie Voigt (Senior Program Officer, Performing Arts, Walker Art Center)
Ms. Pebbles Wadsworth (Director, The University of Texas at Austin Performing ArtsCenter)
Mr. Martin Wechsler (Director of Programming, The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc.)

PAJ Advisory Committee Consultant (as of December 2004)
Prof. Tadashi Uchino (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The
University of Tokyo)

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