{"id":27240,"date":"2006-11-21T14:11:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T14:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/?p=27240"},"modified":"2024-07-04T13:52:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T05:52:27","slug":"the-60-second-plug-sankai-jukus-hibiki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/articles\/2006\/11\/the-60-second-plug-sankai-jukus-hibiki\/","title":{"rendered":"The 60 Second Plug: Sankai Juku’s “Hibiki”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Hibiki<\/em><\/strong> is described as a work of\n“unparalleled simplicity and poetic beauty”. What can you tell us\nabout it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, I have only watched the works on DVD.\nBut let me say one thing: from just that, I can tell that it is a truly, truly,\ntruly<\/em> must-see, world-class performance.\nAwesome choreography, amazing lighting design, excellent costumes — and\nbeautiful music by leading contemporary musicians Kako Takashi and Yoshikawa\nYoichiro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sankai\nJuku has been around for 30 years now, winning multiple awards and taking butoh\nto the world stage. What more can you tell us about this ground breaking group?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Sankai Juku’s biggest contributions is how\nthey’ve brought this underground art form to the mainstream through their\nregular world tours. Amagatsu Ushio is a rare butoh choreographer, who has\nsucceeded in attracting a wider audience by presenting the form in a more\naccessible style — while still retaining its original aesthetics. Without\nSankai Juku, I believe Butoh would not have established itself in the world map\nof dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you\ntell us a bit more about Amagatsu Ushio?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is 57 years old this year — and still dancing! It\nis so amazing that he keeps his enthusiasm for creation and quality in his\nworks even after 30 years. After he established his name in Sankai Juku’s 1st<\/sup>\nEuropean tour, he has been a front-runner among butoh artists in the world.\nDuring the 1990s, he was also active in other things outside butoh, directing\nopera and choreographing non-butoh dancers. Now, Amagatsu concentrates on\nworking with Sankai Juku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you give\nus a brief background on butoh dance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butoh is a dance form, established by Hijikata Tatsumi\nin 1959 with Kinjiki,<\/em> a work based on\nMishima Yukio’s novel Forbidden Colours<\/em>.\nHijikata learned numerous dance forms — Neue Tanz (a form based on German\nexpressionism), American modern dance, jazz dance, western classic ballet and\nseveral others — before he came up with Kinjiki<\/em>.\nIt is said that butoh was his answer to his problems with those other dance forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you watch Hibiki<\/em>,\nit will be obvious that butoh is so different from western dance techniques,\nwith its rather Asian-oriented aesthetics — some say the form’s movements are\nbased on a Japanese farmer’s daily work. It is an art-form where age is no\nboundary, which is why there are some butoh dancers who keep dancing even in\ntheir 50s or 60s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you\never wanted to take up Butoh yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually … yes: when I was a college student and\nstill in shape. I participated in butoh workshops several times, and some of\nthese were held by Sankai Juku members. My most interesting experience during a\nworkshop was how the instructor never corrected my movements. “Is my\nmovement okay?” I asked him, once. His reply was: “There is no such\nthing as a ‘correct movement’ in my class.” According to my instructor,\nthe most exciting workshop participants are Tokyo businessmen \/ businesswomen.\nSince they are under a lot of stress, their movements are the most interesting\nand wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are\nthe head of the Japan Foundation KL’s Cultural Affairs department. How did you\nend up here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After nearly four years of service in the Performing Arts division headquarters in Tokyo, I was transferred to Osaka and spent two years there. One day, I got an offer to come to Kuala Lumpur, as a result of my request to be transferred to a Southeast Asian country. I am very thankful for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month\nyou brought in the KUDAN Project’s Yaji\n& Kita<\/em>; now you bring in Hibiki<\/em>.\nWho in the Japan Foundation decides what to bring in to showcase to Malaysians?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It depends. I propose some projects, which are mainly\ndance and theatre — as do some of my colleagues. Yaji & Kita<\/em> was introduced from our headquarters in Tokyo. On\nthe other hand, bringing in Sankai Juku was initiated by JFKL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew their company manager and sent an email — just\nto push my luck, even though I was quite sure our budget couldn’t cover\nbringing them here. As luck would have it, the generous Sankai Juku guys agreed\nto come, flying here after their North American tour, and before heading back\nto Japan for their year end ‘cuti’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\nsuccessful has your department been in its aim to ‘promote mutual cultural\nexchange between Japan and Malaysia’? What sort of difficulties have you faced?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our missions, I believe, is to plant seeds for\nfuture cultural exchange. JFKL is working to introduce Japanese arts and\nculture to Malaysians and to support Japanese language education. I still\ncannot say we have been ‘successful’ — it is an endless job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is sometimes hard to get enough attention from the\npress and public for our activities. We are not merely concentrating on\nintroducing Japan; “How we can contribute to Malaysia?” is a question\nalways on our mind. For example, we usually organise Q & A sessions or\nworkshops after performances, to promote more interaction between Japanese\nartists and Malaysian artists \/ audiences. Most of the time, Japanese artists\nreally love to do these, since they are curious if their style is accepted by\nMalaysians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever had\nany lost-in-translation situations while dealing with Malaysians?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not often, but there are some moments — mostly due to\nmy poor language ability. But we work as a team with our Malaysian\ncounterparts; they are very cooperative, with warm hearts and smiles. I am\nalways thankful to these counterparts since the Japan Foundation cannot do\nanything without their support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where’s\nthe one place in Malaysia you must<\/em>\ntake visitors from Japan to?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zoo Negara! I’m not kidding. This is my favourite spot\nin KL. I love it, especially the elephant-riding and night zoo. Zoo Negara is\nfamous among a small number of people in the arts community in Japan, because\nof my recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What other\nprojects are JFKL working on?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are now working with The Actors Studio for Taihen in Malaysia<\/em>, a theatre project\nwith the disabled. It will be held in early April, at KLPac. There’ll a\nJapanese drum concert in January, at the Istana Budaya, as a kick-off event for\nthe Japan-Malaysia Friendship Year 2007. And I have to mention our year-long\nWeekend Japanese Film Show showcase, held twice a month at the Malaysian\nTourism Centre on Jalan Ampang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have you been up to lately?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, my biggest mission is to work towards seeing many smiles after the Sankai Juku performance. I am also going to sekolah memandu to get my driving licence! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Published: 21.11.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hibiki is described as a work of “unparalleled simplicity and poetic beauty”. What can you tell us about it? To be honest, I have only watched the works on DVD. But let me say one thing: from just that, I can tell that it is a truly, truly, truly must-see, world-class performance. Awesome choreography, amazing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3536,3558],"tags":[3631,1044,234,1041,910,3630],"language":[7523],"writer":[7614],"class_list":["post-27240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-dance","category-interview","tag-amagatsu-ushio","tag-butoh","tag-dance","tag-japan-foundation-kuala-lumpur","tag-japanese","tag-sankai-juku","language-english","writer-juliet-jacobs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39072,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27240\/revisions\/39072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27240"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27240"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}