Ayako Takahashi - The Japan Times

December 19, 2024

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Ayako Takahashi

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Jun 8, 2017

Ginza's new noh theater seeks to break down cultural barriers

The Kanze Noh Theater reopened in April in Ginza Six, a new upscale shopping complex in central Tokyo that seeks to attract domestic and foreign audiences to a wide range of the country's traditional performing arts.

CULTURE / Stage

Mar 21, 2017

Modern dramatist's 'dark and gorgeous' kabuki tests famed brothers

Life and death are major themes for artists, and for dramatists no less.

CULTURE / Stage

Jan 24, 2017

Celtic noh draws on two cultures' essence

Noh is a uniquely Japanese form of musical drama that dates back to at least the 14th century. However, it took 600 years before this performing art surfaced in Western culture — notably with Irish poet William Butler Yeats' noh-inspired 1917 play "At the Hawk's Well."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Sep 27, 2016

Noh's drum pair keep it in the family

Japan's musical dance-theater form known as noh was honed to its sublime simplicity in the 14th century by a father and son named Kan'ami and Zeami, and since then it has changed very little.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Jul 26, 2016

The Kabukiza's special August season of short plays looks set to be a scorcher

Kabuki never used to be performed in August at the Kabukiza Theatre in Tokyo, but in 1990 two of its late, great actors, Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII and Bando Mitsugoro X, instigated the staging of short programs during that sweltering month to help expand the audience.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Apr 26, 2016

Japan's traditional performing arts getting set for the Olympics

Spurred on by the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, many people involved in Japan's traditional performing arts are preparing for the surge in overseas visitors expected in 2020 — notably the Japan Council, which manages the National Theatre, the National Bunraku Theatre and the National Noh Theatre.

CULTURE / Stage

Nov 24, 2015

Japan's top ballerina recalls times shared with French star

'Sylvie's retirement fills me with deep emotion. She is truly a ballerina who appears only once in 100 years.

Japan Times

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Sep 22, 2015

Star actor Mirai Moriyama shares his delight at being 'in a mess'

As the saying goes, "If you chase two hares, you'll catch neither" — but award-winning actor Mirai Moriyama is proving the exception who's broken this rule by adding "top-flight dancer" to his resume.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

May 26, 2015

Queens' tale speaks to now

Though it's 40 years since Italian playwright Dacia Maraini wrote "Mary Stuart," this story of two queens — Elizabeth I of England and Ireland and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots — remains as relevant now as ever in its portrayal of two women burning with anger about their exploitation by men despite...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Mar 25, 2015

Top bunraku artist ensures his master's name lives on

Traditional Japanese puppetry, known as bunraku, has its roots in 17th-century Osaka, but in the following century a variant emerged in which, rather than a puppet being handled by just one person, three performers working together operated each puppet in a play's cast.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Mar 18, 2015

All change for Kanze noh theater

Of Japan's many traditional performing arts, noh is the most refined — and among its most prominent figures today is 55-year-old Kiyokazu Kanze, the 26th head of its largest faction, the Kanze School.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Feb 4, 2015

Malakhov brings borscht to ballet

"In my free time when I'm not taking classes or conducting rehearsals, I like to go to theaters and museums — or just go shopping and visit different parts of the city," Vladimir Malakhov, The Tokyo Ballet's new artistic adviser explained during our recent Japan Times interview.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Jan 28, 2015

Roppongi Kabuki cites sci-fi, punk

Known for its nightlife, its fleets of Ferraris and condos with sky-high prices, the affluent central Tokyo district of Roppongi will soon go where even that multinational neighborhood has never gone before — when the launch of a program named Roppongi Kabuki will see that ancient form of traditional...

Japan Times

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Jan 14, 2015

Ichiyanagi opera aims to be 'total work of art'

As part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama will stage a world-premier version of "Legend of the Water Flame," an opera by the renowned composer Toshi Ichiyanagi that's scored around a libretto by a fellow octogenarian, the poet Makoto Ooka.

Japan Times

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Jan 1, 2015

Curtains up on 2015

Innovation adds sparkle to traditional forms

Japan Times

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Dec 24, 2014

Ballet meets noh in unique 'Feast of Beauty'

No matter what the weather early next year, a really special show being staged once only in Osaka and Tokyo is sure to set ablaze the hearts of noh and ballet fans alike.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Nov 5, 2014

Spain's ballet powers in

After many years at the Paris Opera Ballet, Jose Carlos Martinez left that fabled company in 2011 when he reached its age limit of 42 for an etoile (principal dancer) — and took up the post of artistic director at the Spanish National Dance Company (Compania Nacional de Danza).

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Oct 1, 2014

Singin' ballet star leads top show's Tokyo cast

Any pantheon of classic Western musical comedy films would include 1952's "Singin' in the Rain" starring the legendary actor and dancer Gene Kelly. Set in late- 1920s Hollywood as it was transitioning from silent films to talkies, it depicts a romance between an established leading man named Don Lockwood...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Sep 10, 2014

DNA eyes its Tokyo dance legacy

An exciting new dance festival named Dance New Air will debut in Tokyo from Sept. 12, featuring performances, symposia, workshops and film screenings at venues in the central Aoyama district.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Aug 27, 2014

Bunraku meets the Bard in new 'Sir Falstaff'

The type of Japanese puppetry known as ningyō-jōruri (aka bunraku) has its roots in 17th-century Osaka. Since then, though, there will rarely if ever have been a bunraku play drawn from stories written a little earlier on the other side of the world — yet that's what awaits Tokyo audiences next month...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.

The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition

By Alex K.T. Martin

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