Performing Arts Japan
List of Awardees 2007-2008
The Japan Foundation is pleased to announce grant awards totaling $275,000 to 16
organizations in the United States through the PAJ Program for the fiscal 2007-2008. The
grant recipients are listed below. (Please contact the Japan Foundation, New York for further
information and finalized performance dates.)

PAJ Touring Grant 2007-2008
Total projects: 6
Total funds allocated: $132,500
Grant amounts: $10,000 - $55,000
Haleakala Inc. dba The Kitchen (New York, NY) for a three-city tour of the audio-visualperformance, Some Cats from Japan 2007, featuring Fuyuki Yamakawa, Kanta Horio andAtsuhiro Ito, three of the most inventive performers active in Tokyo's underground electronic
art and music scene.
Tour Dates: September 16 – 28, 2007
Tour Locations: Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR); Vancouver New
Music (Vancouver, Canada); The Kitchen (New York, NY)
Inta, Inc. (Eiko & Koma) (New York, NY) for a three-city tour of Cambodian Voices, a
half-evening dance quartet created by Eiko and Koma and Cambodian performers Peace andCharian.
Tour Dates: May 1 – June 30, 2007
Tour Locations: Danspace Project (New York, NY); American Dance Festival (Durham, NC);
Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)
The Japan Society of Boston (Boston, MA) for a five-city tour of the National Bunraku
Theater of Osaka, Japan.
Tour Dates: September 29 – October 20, 2007
Tour Locations: Japan Society (New York, NY); Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College(Boston, MA); Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (Urbana, IL); Zellerbach Hall, Cal
Performances (Berkeley, CA); Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (Los Angeles,CA)
Maureen Fleming Company (New York Foundation for the Arts) (New York, NY) for afour-city tour of Maureen Fleming Company’s new evening-length interdisciplinary work,
Waters of Immortality, featuring shakuhachi master Akikazu Nakamura.
Tour Dates: April 16 – November 4, 2007
Tour Locations: Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT); KaatsbaanInternational Dance Center (Tivoli, NY); La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (New York,NY); Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA)
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Music From Japan, Inc. (New York, NY) for a four-city tour of percussionist Yasunori
Yamaguchi and Takeshi Sasamoto, Japanese ancient flautist, and ensemble, with related
educational events.
Tour Dates: February 23 – 29, 2008
Tour Locations: Merkin Concert Hall (New York, NY); Yasuragi Center (Mahopac, NY);
Samford University (Birmingham, AL); Converse College (Spartanburg, SC)
Washington University (St. Louis, MO) for a three-city tour of Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo
Puppet Theatre Company, accompanied by live Japanese traditional narrative songs (shinnai)featuring Tsuruga Wakasanojo XI, a living national treasure.
Tour Dates: September 27 – October 22, 2007
Tour Locations: University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Amherst, MA); Hanford Fox Theater(Hanford, CA); Washington University (St. Louis, MO)

PAJ Collaboration Grant 2007-2008
Total projects: 10Total funds allocated: $142,500
Grant amounts: $7,500 - $25,000
CAVE Organization, Inc. (Brooklyn, NY) Ximena Garnica LEIMAY AcTS LAB will
create Saigo No Honou: A Timeless Kaidan, a new interdisciplinary piece inspired bytraditional Japanese ghost stories (kaidan) and the Edo-era practice of telling these tales withprogressively diminishing candlelight (hyaku monogatari) in collaboration with video artist
Shige Moriya and Japanese butoh dancers, Takuya Ishide, Yuko Kaseki and Daiji Meguro.
The work will premiere at the Theater for the New City in November 2007 as part of the New
York Butoh Festival in November 2007.
Project Period: April – November 2007
Dancer’s Group (San Francisco, CA) Japan-based butoh master, Katsura Kan, and San
Francisco-based American butoh artist, Saw Ledoh, will develop Harvesting Beauty in theDark, a new performance grounded in an exploration of butoh notation – the literary roots offounder Tatsumi Hijikata’s butoh technique. The objective of the performance is to generate
an original danced form of butoh poetry in the new global context of Japanese performance art.
Project Period: April 2007 – Spring 2008
Dansology, Inc. (New York, NY) Koosil-ja/dance KUMIKOKIMOTO will create an
original dance work, Blocks of Continuality/Movement – Live Cinema, in collaboration witheight artists based in New York, including composer Geoff Matters and video artist Caspar
Stracke. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s philosophical theory that individuals are connected in aflow, beyond and outside of geography, the artists will explore the notion of presence, therealm of reality and the politics of body in digital community. The work will premiere atDance Theater Workshop (New York) in Fall/Winter 2008.
Project Period: September 2007 – Spring 20087

Japan Society, Inc. (New York, NY) will commission butoh legend Akira Kasai to create a
new dance work, Butoh: America (tentative title), in collaboration with five emerging
U.S.-based butoh artists selected through an audition: Sara Baird, Deborah Butler, Alissa
Cardone, Celeste Hastings and Stephanie Lanckton. The work will premiere at Japan
Society in October 2007 as part of Kazuo Ohno 101: Three-week Butoh Parade in celebrationof the 101st birthday of Kazuo Ohno, one of the founders of butoh.
Project Period: November 2006 – October 2007
Links Hall (Chicago, IL) will produce Sound Space: Japan/USA, a new collaborative musicand dance project by eight Japanese and American artists: Gene Coleman (bass clarinet andproject director), Ko Ishikawa (sho), Yoko Nishi (koto), Ryuko Mizutani (koto), Kazuhisa
Uchihashi (guitar and electronics) as well as Nicole Binder, Asimina Chremos and Daniel
Burkholder (dancers). The artists will create a work using movement and sound, responding
to different architectural spaces through a series of residencies in Chicago, Philadelphia andWashington, DC.
Project Period: June 2007 – March 2008Ma-Yi Theatre Company (New York, NY) will create an original multi-media theatre
production based on Haruki Murakami’s novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, under the artistic
direction of Stephen Earnhart. Other artists include Gregory Pierce (writer), Tal Yarden(visual designer) and Keiko Tsuneda (Japanese literary translator). Work-in-progress
showings will be held at Morishita Studio (Tokyo) in December 2007 as well as at 3-Legged
Dog Art and Technology Center (New York) in Spring 2008.
Project Period: April 2007 – Spring 2008
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center (New York, NY) will foster thedevelopment of a collaborative relationship between contemporary cutting-edge playwrightsfrom Japan and New York-based ensemble theatre companies. Four Japanese playwrights,Masataka Matsuda, Akio Miyazawa, Toshiki Okada and Mikuni Yanaihara, will be
invited to New York to work with Josh Fox (International WOW Company), Jay Scheib,
The Play Company and Daniel Safer (Witness Relocation), culminating in an evening ofstaged readings at the 5th Annual PRELUDE Festival in September 2007.
Project Period: April – September 2007
The Playwrights’ Center (Minneapolis, MN), in collaboration with the Guthrie Theater, willdevelop and present staged readings of two contemporary Japanese plays: Like a Butterfly, My
Nostalgia by Masataka Matsuda and Women Want to Tidy Up by Ai Nagai. Matsuda andNagai will be invited to the 25th Annual PlayLabs Festival in July 2007 as well as to theWriter/Director Series in November 2007 to work with American directors and dramaturgs.
Project Period: July 2007 – Spring 2008
7 Loaves, Inc. AKA GOH PRODUCTIONS (New York, NY) will produce a new
dance-theater work, POOOM (tentative title), conceived and directed by New York-based
choreographer, Yoshiko Chuma. Based on the personal history and essays by M.K. Binodini,a leading female writer in Manipur (India), the work will be developed through a series of8

residencies in Manipur, Japan and the U.S., exploring the theme of cultures in conflict. Theartists include five dancers from Chuma’s School of Hard Knocks, Jacob Burckhardt (sounddesigner), Han’nya Teikoku (shakuhachi trio), Sizzle Ohtaka (singer/narrator) and Kyoko
Hirano (dramaturg). The work will premiere at Japan Society (New York) in Fall 2008.
Project Period: May 2007 – April 2008
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA) will produce c(H)ord, a newcollaborative performance work that takes its cue from butoh dance, Korean traditional music
and dance, rock and roll, new music composition, Roy Hart vocal training and physical theater
under the artistic direction of San Francisco-based artist, Shinichi lova-Koga (inkBoat).
Other artists include Takuya Ishide, Sten Rudstrøm, Yuko Kaseki, Heini Nukari, Dohee
Lee, Haruko Nishimura, Dana lova-Koga and Sherwood Chen. The work will premiere atYerba Buena Center for the Arts on April 24, 2008.
Project Period: January 2007 – April 2008

The grant applications for the fiscal 2007-2008 were reviewed by the PAJ Advisory Committee,
comprising one Japanese consultant and ten performing arts specialists from throughout theUnited States. The committee made its recommendations to the Japan Foundation
Headquarters in Tokyo.

PAJ Advisory Committee Members (as of December 2006)
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Ms. Elizabeth Boone (Artistic and Executive Director, Miami Light Project)
Ms. Rachel Cooper (Director, Cultural Programs and Performing Arts, Asia Society)
Mr. Lane Czaplinski (Artistic Director, On The Boards/Behnke Center for ContemporaryPerformance)
Mr. Charles Helm (Director of Performing Arts, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio
State University)
Dr. Arnold Malina (Chief Programming Officer and Artistic Director, Flynn Center for the
Performing Arts)
Mr. Peter Taub (Director of Performance Programs, Museum of Contemporary Art
Chicago)Mr. Sixto Wagan (Co-Executive Director/Performing Arts Curator, DiverseWorks
Artspace)
Mr. Martin Wechsler (Director of Programming, The Joyce Theater Foundation)
Ms. MK Wegmann (CEO and President, National Performance Network)
Mr. Martin Wollesen (Director, University Events Office, University of California, SanDiego)

PAJ Advisory Committee Consultant (as of December 2006)
Mr. Hidenaga Otori (Theater Critic)

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