The avant-garde scene in Kyoto has a unique challenge, being based in a city where tradition is synonymous with local identity.
There are a few elements challenging the status quo, though, such as Urbanguild in the Nakagyo district. Over the past 18 months, this intimate performance venue has hosted an eclectic and multinational mix of musicians, video artists and a poet, who are collectively reinterpreting Igor Stravinsky's iconoclastic "The Rite of Spring" in a production titled "Sanka's Winter Ritual."
The ensemble calls itself Enso Watt and was assembled by Frenchman Samuel Andre, a multimedia artist based in Kyoto. Invited by Urbanguild in 2013 to put on an event, Andre decided to do something a little different from the outset and wanted to shake up the typical perceptions of a live performance. To help him, he recruited Yannick Paget, a composer and associate conductor with the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.
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