Performing Arts Japan 2012-2013
List of Awardees
The Japan Foundation is pleased to announce grant awards totaling US$300,000 to 12
organizations in the United States and Canada through the PAJ Program for the 2012-2013
fiscal year. The grant recipients are listed below. (Please contact the Japan Foundation, NewYork for further information and finalized performance dates).

Touring Grant awards
Total projects: 6
Total funds allocated: $185,000
Grant amounts: $18,000 – $50,000

Canadian Stage (Toronto, ON) for a seven city tour of the composer, video artist,
choreographer, performer Hiroaki Umeda’s most recent creations, Haptic +Holistic Strata.
Tour Dates: January 15, 2013- March 17, 2013
Tour Locations: Spotlight: Japan at Canadian Stage (Toronto, ON), PuSH Festival (Vancouver,BC), Theatre Junction (Calgary, AB), MT Space (Kitchener, ON), Wexner Center (Columbus,OH), REDCAT (Los Angeles, CA), New York Live Arts (New York, NY)

ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn, NY) for a five city tour of Voices and Echoes from Japanthat features the works of pioneers of Japanese contemporary arts: Akio Suzuki (sound artist),
Gozo Yoshimasu (poet) and Otomo Yoshihide (avant-garde musician). The performances
will span a wide array of artistic disciplines including literature, sound art, conceptual
performances and improvisation.
Tour Date: September 17-28, 2012
Tour Locations: Time-Based Festival (Portland, OR), CalArts-The Wild Beast (Los Angeles,CA), Vancouver New Music (Vancouver, Canada), Nameless Sound (Houston, TX), ISSUE
Project Room (Brooklyn, NY)Japan Society, Inc. (New York, NY) for a four-city tour of traditional dance and music fromthe Kuromori Kagura repertoire (traditional Japanese folklore music and dance that
represents a display of appreciation to the gods of Shintoism), from the region devastated bythe Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Tour Dates: October 26–November 3, 2012
Tour Locations: Japan Society (New York, NY); Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT);
Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA); Towson University (Towson, MD)Kyo-Shin-An Arts, Inc. (Brooklyn, NY) for a four city tour of Kammerraku: On the Road,
which will introduce commissioned repertoire for string quartet with shakuhachi, koto, andshamisen to audiences.
Tour Date: September 2012-July 2013
Tour Locations: Indiana University, South Bend (South Bend, IN), Touhill Performing Arts
Center (St. Louis, MD), Duke Performances, Nelson Music Room (Durham, NC), UCONN
Storrs (Storrs, CT)

Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Portland, OR) for a three-city tour of Kota
Yamazaki's new work (glowing), inspired by Jun’ichiro Tanizaski’s Praise of Shadow,
exploring the similarities between butoh and African dance.
.
Tour Date: September 2012 –January 2013.
Tour Locations: Time-Based Festival (Portland, OR), VSA North Fourth Arts Center(Albuquerque, NM), Miami Light Project (Miami, FL)

Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater Research (Putney, VT) for a five-city tour topresent Deaf Puppet Theater Hitomi (Japan)'s acclaimed "Boxes" at Sandglass Theater'sPuppets in the Green Mountains Festival 2012.
Tour Date: July - October 2012
Tour Locations: Bellow Falls Opera House (Bellow Falls, VT), University of Connecticut(Storrs, CT), Castleton State College (Castleton, VT)

Collaboration Grant awards
Total projects: 6
Total funds allocated: $115,000
Grant amounts: $5,000 – $27,000

California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) for a multi-cultural, multi-layered
composition and performance collaboration between two koto artists, Ai Kajikano andTsugumi Yamamoto, two pianists Andy Milne and Benoit Delbecq, and an animator SakiMurotani.
Project Period: September 2012 – September 2013

Centrum (Port Townsend, WA) for Fifty-five: Music and Dance in Concrete, a site-specificcollaboration between composer Wayne Horvitz, choreographer Yukio Suzuki, and video
artist Yohei Saito.
Project Period: July – November 2012

Mount Tremper Arts, Inc. (Mount Tremper, NY) will create performance of a new work Axel
Honor by choreographer Ursula Eagly and composer Kohji Setoh and perform at MTAFestival.
Project Period: August 7-11, 2012

New York Live Arts (New York, NY) for a new work, entitled BELL, by Yasuko Yokoshiwith Masumi Seyama, successor of Kabuki master Kanjyuro Fujima VI, and fourcontemporary Jazz musicians from Ireland, Australian, and Japan. The artists will reinterpretthe classical Nagauta song score to Western instruments and perform live.
Project Period: July 2012 – June 2013

Pig Iron Theater Company (Philadelphia, PA) for a new performance work ZERO COST
HOUSE , by Toshiki Okada and Dan Rothenberg,. The piece will be based on the lives andworks of two contemporary figures in Japan.
Project Period: July 2012- May 2013

PAJ Advisory Committee Members (as of December 2011)


Ms. Cathy Edwards (Director of Performance Programs, International Festival of Arts andIdeas)
Mr. Vallejo Gantner (Artistic Director, Performance Space 122)
Mr. Charles Helm (Director of Performing Arts, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio
State University)
Mr. Arnold Malina (Chief Programming Officer and Artistic Director, Flynn Center for theArts)
Ms. Angela Mattox (Performing Arts Curator, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)
Mr. Sixto Wagan (Co-Executive Director/Performing Arts Curator, DiverseWorks
Artspace)
Ms. Tina Rasmussen (Director, Harborfront Center, Toronto)
Ms. MK Wegmann (CEO and President, National Performance Network)
Mr. Martin Wollesen (Director, University Events Office, UC San Diego)