Performing Arts Japan 2017-2018
List of Awardees

The Japan Foundation is pleased to announce grant awards totaling USD161,500 andCAD34,000 to 13 organizations in the United States and Canada through the PAJ Programfor the 2017-2018 fiscal year. The grant recipients are listed below. (Please contact theJapan Foundation, New York and Japan Foundation, Toronto for further information andfinalized performance dates).

Touring Grant awards
Total projects: 8
Total funds allocated: USD90,950; CAD34,000
Grant amounts: USD6,800 – USD25,500

Arts Midwest (Minneapolis, MN) for a tour of Japanese taiko ensemble Ondekoza to fiveMidwestern communities in the spring of 2018 as part of the first year of the 2017-2019
cycle of Arts Midwest Fest, the global touring performance and education program.
Tour Date: February 4 – March 10, 2018
Tour Locations: Sheldon Theatre (Red Wing, MN); Heritage Center, University of
Dubuque (Dubuque, IA); Prairie du Chien High School (Prairie du Chien, WI); Riggs High
Theater (Pierre, SD); Dorothy Stickney Auditorium, Dickinson State University (Dickinson,ND)

Blank Forms (Brooklyn, NY) for a tour of Kazuki Tomokawa and Morio Agata, twohistoric artists from the Japanese underground music scene, on a 4 city, 5 evening tour ofthe United States.
Tour Dates: TBD
Tour Locations: TBD

Fuse Box Austin (Austin, TX) for a four-city U.S. tour of Japanese choreographer KaoriSeki and her company PUNCTUMUN.
Tour Dates: April 1 – May 12, 2018
Tour Locations: Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX); Links Hall (Chicago, IL); TBD; Flynn
Center for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT)

IMJS: Japanese Cultural Heritage Initiatives (New York, NY) for a nine-city North
America tour of Shakuhachi and Ichigenkin: Discovery in a Single Tone, a series ofconcerts and workshops for shakuhachi and ichigenkin (one-stringed koto).
Tour Dates: September 28 – October 21, 2017
Tour Locations: Leshomtz Recital Hall, Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ); Hartt
School of Music, University of Hartford (Hartford, CT); Katonah High School and Katonah
Public Library (Katonah, NY); University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA); University ofColorado at Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs, CO); Columbia University (New York,NY); University of Memphis (Memphis, TN); Belmont University (Nashville, TN); Middle
Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN)

MUTEK: International Festival of Digital Creativity and Electronic Music (Montreal,QC) for 30 minute dance performance involving 5 dancers, several projectors, lasers,
motion and projection mapping, drones and robotics..
Tour Dates: TBD
Tour Locations: TBD

New Mexico Presenters Alliance (Socorro, NM) for a three-city tour of
TAIKOPROJECT ALL-STARS in New Mexico including public performances,interactive workshops and school assemblies.
Tour Dates: September 27 – October 6, 2017
Tour Locations: Henderson Center, San Juan College (Farmington, NM); Western New
Mexico University Theater (Silver City, NM); Macey Center, New Mexico Institute ofMining and Technology (Socorro, NM)

Scottsdale Cultural Council (Scottsdale, AZ) for a two-city tour of Enmei (Long Life), acollaboration by four dancers and artists ranging in age from 45-73 to explore the different
ways our respective cultures value the body, age, and the aging process, itself.
Tour Dates: March 20-26, 2018
Tour Locations: Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts (Scottsdale, AZ); University ofOregon (Eugene, OR)Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) (LosAngeles, CA) for a five-city North America tour of two pioneering Japanese sound artists
Akio Suzuki and Aki Onda.
Tour Dates: October, 2017
Tour Locations: Good Shepherd Center (Seattle, WA); The Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook(Los Angeles, CA); Crowley Theater (Marfa, TX); Pioneer Works (New York, NY); La Sala
Rossa (Montreal, QC)

Collaboration Grant awards
Total projects: 5
Total funds allocated: USD70,550
Grant amounts: USD8,500 – USD29,750

ANIKAYA/Akhra, Inc. (Somerville, MA) for Borders, an intensive collaboration withANIKAYA artistic director Wendy Jehlen and Dakei Shizuku, an accomplished deafbutoh artist based in Tokyo.
Project Period: Fall, 2017 – Spring, 2018

Baryshnikov Arts Center (New York, NY) for Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I orHallucination, a series of dances developed by Kota Yamazaki, aims to harmoniously
combine the dance, philosophy, and folklore around Goze music (or music of blind women)
in order to reveal the unknown universe of the body and to portray interbeingness ofdifferent perspectives in unconventional way, through significantly different bodies of four
acomplished dance artists.
Project Period: December, 2017

Dallas Black Dance Theatre (Dallas, TX) for a collaboration with Japanese choreographer
Takehiro Ueyama and Dallas Black Dance Theatre to create a new work for its second
professional performing company DBDT: Encore! During the organization’s 41st season in
2017-2018.
Project Period: August, 2017 – May, 2018

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (New York, NY) for a collaboration between
Japanese playwright/director Takeshi Kawamura and American plawright/director JohnJesurun. Inspired by the traditional Japanese collaborative poetry style Renga, the tworenowned artists will both write and direct a play in collaborative partnership.
Project Period: July, 2017 – June, 2018

Ripe Time (Brooklyn, NY) for Sleep, a new immersive physical theater work that traces
the distance between what we appear to be and what we are, inspired by Haruki
Murakami's shattering 1994 short story, Japanese Hannya myths and horror films.
Project Period: August, 2017 – March, 2018

PAJ Advisory Committee Members (as of December 2016)
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Mr. Ben Johnson (Program Manager, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA)
Ms. Sherrie Johnson (Executive Producer, Canadian Stage)
Mr. Jordan Peimer (Executive Director, ArtPower! at UC San Diego)
Ms. Sabrina Motley (Director, Smithsonian Folklife Festival)
Ms. Sara Nash (Project Manager, National Dance Project)