The Japan Foundation Performing Arts JAPAN 2004-2005
LIST OF AWARDEESThe Japan Foundation is pleased to announce grant awards totaling $270,000 to 12 presentersand artists in the United States through the Performing Arts JAPAN (PAJ) program for fiscal
year 2004-2005. The awards are made in the following two categories:
1. Grants to support touring projects of Japanese performing arts in the United States andCanada organized by American presenters; and2. Grants to support collaborations between American and Japanese performing artists.
Created in 1994, the PAJ program seeks to facilitate better understanding of Japanese culture in
the United States by providing geographically-diverse American audiences with greater
exposure to Japanese performing arts. PAJ also encourages collaborations between Japaneseand American artists, which will enhance the understanding of Japanese culture whenpresented to American audiences.
The 2004-2005 grantees are listed below. (Please contact The Japan Foundation New York
Office for further information about finalized tour dates.)

PAJ Touring Grant awards 2004-2005
Total projects: 7
Total funds allocated: $205,500

Arts Midwest (Minneapolis, MN) for a five-city tour of the Japanese ensemble, The Bamboo
Orchestra. Through week-long residencies in each community, the orchestra will conduct
public and school performances, multiple workshops, and a number of outreach activities,
enabling local audiences to experience Japanese culture in an intensive way. Following thesuccess of its U.S. debut tour in Spring 2004, the Bamboo Orchestra will be featured in theMidwest World Fest, a global education and outreach program of Arts Midwest.
Tour Dates: February 27 - April 2, 2005
Tour Locations: Grand Valley State University (Grand Rapids, MI); Frauenthal Center for thePerforming Arts (Muskegon, MI); Council for the Arts of Greater Lima (Lima, OH); Arts Place(Portland, IN); Springfield Area Arts Council (Springfield, IL)

First Voice, Inc. (San Francisco, CA) for a five-city tour of Kuan-Yin: Our Lady of Compassion, an international collaboration combining spoken word, storytelling, Gagaku (JapaneseImperial Court) music, Noh theater, Bugaku dance, and jazz. Key artists involved in thisproject include Mark Izu (composer and project director), Brenda Wong Aoki (award-winningtheatrical performer and librettist), Togi Suenobu (Gagaku master musician), and Shu-wing
Tang (director). The tour is the outcome of their collaboration funded by PAJ 2000-2001.
Tour Dates: November 2004
Tour Locations: Asia Society (New York, NY); Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL);
Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (Los Angeles, CA); Zoellner Center for
Performing Arts (Bethlehem, PA); Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts (Long Beach, CA)

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Washington,DC) for a four-city tour of Kazue Sawai Koto Ensemble. Ms. Sawai is an acclaimed Koto
(Japanese table zither) performer and pioneer, and a leader of the contemporary Koto music
movement for nearly 40 years. Each venue will present a performance of Ms. Sawai and threeguest artists, followed by an interactive workshop/lecture-demonstration. In New York andWashington, DC, 25 musicians from the Sawai Koto Academy will also join the concerts.
Tour Dates: Winter 2004 - 2005
Tour Locations: University of the South (Sewanee, TN); Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery (Washington, DC); Asia Society (New York, NY); Asian Arts & Culture Center,Towson University (Towson, MD)

Japan Society, Inc. (New York, NY) for a four-city tour of RINKO-GUN, one of Japan’s
leading contemporary theater companies, with their latest production, Yaneura (Attic). The play,written and directed by Yoji Sakate, addresses a growing social issue in Japan known ashikikomori. Literally translated as “to withdraw from society,” this alarming trend describes
people, often in their teens and twenties, who shut themselves in their rooms to escape contact
with the outside world. Yaneura will be performed in Japanese with English subtitles.
Tour Dates: January 18 - February 5, 2005
Tour Locations: Japan Society (New York, NY); University of Massachusetts, Amherst(Amherst, MA); University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA); Miami Light Project (Miami, FL)

Music From Japan, Inc. (New York, NY) for a four-city tour of Reigakusha, a Gagaku(Japanese Imperial Court music) ensemble under the direction of Sukeyasu Shiba, to perform
concerts of classical and contemporary works on authentic replicas of musical instruments of
the Shoso-in repository, formerly the Todai-ji monastery-temple storehouse in Nara, Japan. For
more than 1,000 years, it has housed a wealth of artifacts that traveled the famed Silk Road
from Tang China and as far away as Persia, to Japan in the 8th century.
Tour Dates: September 8 - 17, 2004
Tour Locations: Carnegie Hall (New York, NY); Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts(Washington, DC); Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Emory University (Atlanta, GA); Cal
Performances, University of California Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)Pittsburgh Dance Council (Pittsburgh, PA) for a three-city tour of Pappa TARAHUMARA,a leading Japanese interdisciplinary performance company led by Hiroshi Koike, to present theU.S. premiere of Ship in a View, a free-flowing panorama of images ranging from a seaside
town in the 1960’s, when post-war Japan was experiencing a rapid industrialization, to afuturistic scene of dazzling movement and mysteriously beautiful imagery. In each city, thecompany will conduct residency activities with local students and artists.
Tour Dates: September 28 - October 15, 2004
Tour Locations: University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Amherst, MA); Pittsburgh Dance
Council (Pittsburgh, PA); University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA)

University Musical Society (Ann Arbor, MI) for an eight-city tour of one of Japan’s mostrevered Butoh artists, Akira Kasai, in Pollen Revolution, a daring solo performance that takes
the audience on a journey through time, cultures, and states of being. In addition to the fullperformances of evening-length at each location, Mr. Kasai will offer lectures and/orworkshops - suitable for all ages and backgrounds - focusing on how the human body can beunderstood not only in the dance world, but also in every aspect of contemporary society.
Tour Dates: September 9 - October 20, 2004
Tour Locations: Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Philadelphia, PA); Portland Institute ofContemporary Art (Portland, OR); On The Boards (Seattle, WA); University of Massachusetts,Amherst (Amherst, MA); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); University Musical Society,(Ann Arbor, MI); Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL); Japanese American Cultural &Community Center (Los Angeles, CA)

PAJ Collaboration Grant awards 2004-2005
Total projects: 5
Total funds allocated: $64,500

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (Berkeley, CA) will create a multi-media performance under
the artistic direction of Maestro Kent Nagano, with composers Naomi Sekiya, David Benoit,and Jean-Pascal Beintus; playwright Philip Kan Gotanda; scenic designer Robert Wilson.
Project Period: Winter 2004 - Spring 2005

California Institute of the Arts School of Music/REDCAT (Valencia, CA) will invite fourJapanese artists - Hiroko Ito, Reiko Manabe, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Yoshihide Otomo - towork with CalArts artists Rachel Rudich, Mark Trayle, Wadada Leo Smith, as well as theCalArts New Century Players, on a collaborative performances to be presented at REDCAT.
Project Period: February 2005

Dance Theater Workshop, Inc. (New York, NY) will provide a series of one-week residencies
in five cities in the U.S. and Japan for a group of choreographers drawn from both countries:
Yukiko Amano, Ori Flomin, Tania Isaacs, Shigemi Kitamura and Sara Sweet Rabidoux.
Project Period: January - March 2005

Group Motion Multi-Media Dance Company (Philadelphia, PA) will collaborate with Akiko
Kitamura’s Leni-Basso Dance Company to create a new multi-media dance work during afour-week residency in Philadelphia.
Project Period: July 1 - September 30, 2004

LINES Contemporary Ballet (San Francisco, CA) will commission a composition fromSomei Satoh and the choreography from Alonzo King in order to explore Eastern perceptionsof time and space through music and movement.
Project Period: July 2004 - April 2005

The grant applications for fiscal year 2004-2005 were reviewed by the PAJ Advisory
Committee, which is comprised of ten distinguished specialists in the area of the performing
arts from around the United States and two Japanese consultants. The committee made its
award recommendations to the Japan Foundation’s Headquarters in Tokyo.
PAJ Advisory Committee Members (as of December 2003)
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Dr. Michael Blachly (Director, University of Florida Performing Arts)
Ms. Susan S. Farr (Executive Director, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Universityof Maryland)
Ms. Olga M. Garay (Program Director for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation)
Ms. Margaret A. Lawrence (Director of Programming, Hopkins Center for the Arts,Dartmouth College)
Ms. Cora Mirikitani (President and CEO, Japanese American Cultural and CommunityCenter)
Mr. Phillip Reynolds (Executive Director, Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago)Dr. Michael Ross (Executive Director, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Ms. Rena Shagan (President, Rena Shagan Associates)
Ms. Julie Voigt (Senior Program Officer, Performing Arts, Walker Art Center)
Ms. Pebbles Wadsworth (Director, University of Texas Performing Arts Center)

PAJ Advisory Committee Consultants (as of December 2003)
Prof. Tadashi Uchino (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, TheUniversity of Tokyo)
Ms. Noriko Sengoku (Executive Director, Japan-US Partnership for the Performing Arts)