From the end of February through the beginning of March, with co-sponsorship from the Consulate and other organizations, North Dakota State University held a Kyogen performance in Fargo, North Dakota.
Since January, Ms. Tokuro Miyake, a celebrated master of kyogen in Japan, has given special instruction on kyogen at NDSU’s theater department. The fruits of this labor were a kyogen performance by Ms. Miyake and NDSU students.
The top pictures shows the opening performance, and the bottom picture shows the students constructing their costumes.
The Consulate actively supports the introduction of traditional Japanese culture to the United States.
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In late January, Aichi Prefecture's Damine Elementary School, the Consulate, and other organizations, brought two public performances of Aichi's Damine Village traditional kabuki to Illinois.
Traditional kabuki with roots in the Edo-era is still performed in Damine Village. Since 1990, Damine Kabuki stages public performances in the United States every few years, along with participating in exchange programs with American schools. On this occasion, they performed productions of “Yoshinoyama” (top picture) and “Kurumabiki” (middle picture) at Arlington Heights’ South Middle School on January 20, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on January 22. With narration provided by U of I’s Dr. Shozo Sato (bottom picture), the many guests gathered at both performances enjoyed a great taste of kabuki. The Consulate actively supports the introduction of traditional Japanese culture to the United States. |
 
From January 15 to February 7, a photography exhibit entitled “Moving Forward: Life After the Great East Japan Earthquake” is being held at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.
Co-sponsored by The Kahoku Shimpo newspaper (from Miyagi Prefecture’s Sendai City), the University of Chicago’s East Asian Center, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the UCLA Paul I. and Hisako Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, the Consulate, the Japan Foundation, and others, this exhibit endeavors to focus on the reconstruction and recovery effort after the Great East Japan Earthquake with photographs from the Kahoku Shimpo. For more information on the exhibit, please visit this page. The top picture shows the exhibit, the bottom shows the opening reception at the Chapel. |
 
From January 9 to 31, the Consulate, in conjunction with the Japan Foundation and the Illinois Institute of Technology, will be holding “Struggling Cities,” an architecture and urban design exhibit, at IIT’s Crown Hall.
Taking as its point of departure the various experimental ideas on the city that flourished in Japan in the 1960s and using a combination of diverse media - from architectural scale models to photographs and slides, along with animations and other audio-visuals - this exhibition examines various circumstances of Japanese and other cities up to the present day, and identifies in particular the distinctive aspects of those circumstances as they are manifested in present-day Tokyo. On January 12, Columbia University Professor Kenneth Frampton gave a lecture at Crown Hall to around 250 guests. Professor Frampton introduced urban design plans and architecture from Japan and many other countries around the world, including pieces featured in the exhibit by Arata Isozaki (Cities in the Air) and Kenzo Tange (A Plan for Tokyo-1960). His lecture prompted many questions from the audience. |