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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

'30 Dreams of Japanese Painters'

How much do our childhood dreams and hopes for the future change as we grow up? The Kasama Nichido Museum of Art explores this question with a display of 30 works by painters who were asked to illustrate dreams they experienced when they were young.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2014

'Sleep' dances toward another world

As a dancer, choreographer, philosopher and now professor in the Department of Scenography Design, Drama and Dance at Tama Art University in Setagaya, Tokyo, Saburo Teshigawara has been extending the range of his talents ever since he stopped studying visual arts and sculpture to begin learning ballet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014

Haruki Murakami's new book peels back the layers of friendship

Haruki Murakami has made his name in the West with the translations of his tome-like novels, but it was 1987's relatively slim Norwegian Wood that made him famous in Japan. And his latest big hit here is similarly slender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2014

The back story to Taiwan's treasures

The artworks and objects on display at the Tokyo National Museum's latest show, "Treasured Masterpieces from the National Palace Museum, Taipei," have had something of checkered history. A large part of this was due to the efforts of the Japanese Imperial Army to get their hands on the collection, which...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 2, 2014

Is the next stop 'brokesville' for the maglev?

Robert Moses, the civil servant who built the great park-expressway-bridge network in New York state during the middle of the last century, succeeded by gaming the system. Understanding how politics would make it difficult for him to fulfill his vision, he often started a public works project clandestinely....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2014

Israel, Gaza and the U.S. perception

The Israeli military is neither incompetent nor accident-prone where hospitals or U.N. schools are concerned. So, does a theory live in its ranks that terrorization works in Gaza?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2014

'Time and the Painting: 24 Episodes'

The Bridgestone Museum of Art has in its collection close to 160 paintings related to the concept of "time."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2014

'Bohemian Glass from the Collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague'

Though stained glass was being made for church windows in Europe during the 12th century, it was not until the rise of Venetian glass makers in the 13th century that other items, such as vases and jugs, were made for the public. It was also during the 13th century that artisans in Bohemia and Silesia...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 30, 2014

Mitani brings new life to a love-suicide

If there's one thing I never expected to see in a bunraku play, it was a disco ball. Similarly, a scene in which the leading lady has her nails done by a bevy of kimono-clad attendants.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 28, 2014

Japan plans campaign to curb manga, anime copyright violations abroad

The government will initiate in August a major campaign to curtail the rampant practice, mainly in China, of uploading Japanese anime and manga on the Web for public viewing without authors' permission, NHK said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2014

Genitalia artist no harm, no foul

For Japanese prosecutors to continue their investigation of the merits of making a case against a vagina artist will only bring her more publicity and do nothing to protect morals or preserve public order.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 25, 2014

With poll numbers falling, Abe turns to suffering local economies

As his polling numbers dive, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turns his attention and bluster to the nation's rural economies, vowing to work his 'Abenomics' magic outside Tokyo.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jul 18, 2014

Organ donation

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 17, 2014

To perceive is to see Felix Vallotton's genius at work

The art of the Swiss painter Felix Vallotton is both deceptive and loaded with revelation. On the surface it has the knowing sophistication and social references of other fin-de-siècle art — Vallotton was active from the 1880s until his death in 1925 — but it also cuts much deeper, pushing us toward...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 17, 2014

'The Sound of Water: From Hiroshige's Rain and Rivers to Senju Hiroshi's Waterfalls'

Being an island nation, Japan has always relied on water as a major form of transport and travel, with the importance of its natural waterways often depicted in art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2014

Suitcase 'Macbeth' packs a punch

Cultures collide on the small square stage of Mansai Nomura's pared-down "Macbeth," in which the actor/director draws on the restrained aesthetics of noh and the agility and wit of kyōgen traditional comic theater as he transplants his version of Shakespeare's blood-soaked Scottish play to medieval...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 12, 2014

Meet the Japanese author behind Tom Cruise's new sci-fi smash

You might be surprised to hear that the latest Tom Cruise science-fiction epic, "Edge of Tomorrow," which hit theaters here recently, has a Japanese pedigree. It is based on the short novel "All You Need is Kill" by award-winning author Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2014

Off the beaten path on Japan's paper trail

At a little roadside store in rural Nagano, a foreign tourist is miming a rice bowl with her cupped left hand. Firm in the belief that Japanese washi (paper — wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper) was made from rice, she waves her flattened right hand across the "bowl," miming her desire for "sheets"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 5, 2014

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

It is noticeable that the tales in "Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa change in tone and style alongside the mental state and interests of the writer. Akutagawa's most famed early works (including the titular story) are intricately woven setups for moral questions, whereas...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2014

World-weary and resigned, yet the samurai spirit soldiers on

Since the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s, artistic skill and superlative craftsmanship came to be derided as almost artistic embarrassment, a suspect accusation leveled at the supposed old guard who took pride in their technical proficiency. Think of Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, their artistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 2, 2014

Son's film reveals secret workings of stage maestro Peter Brook's art

Peter Brook is a titan in the world of theater. Now aged 89, the director staged his first work, Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," in 1942. After a groundbreaking stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s, in 1970 the London-born director co-founded the International Centre for Theatre...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Get your kids into music

With so many pop and idol groups in Japan, classical music is often neglected when it comes to kids' preferences in music. But, perhaps surprisingly, infants and toddlers have been found to respond just as positively to works such as Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" and Mozart's piano sonatas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014

'Scary stories' series reaches limit

In "Hyakumonogatari," a 1911 novella by the great author and translator Ogai Mori, the protagonist explains that its title refers to a traditional way of telling ghost stories, saying: "In hyakumonogatari (meaning '100 tales'), people gather together and arrange 100 candles. Each person tells a ghost...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014

'Looking East: Western Artists and the Allure of Japan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston'

After Japan finally opened up to foreign trade during the mid- to late 1800s, many of the West's well-known 20th-century art movements were, perhaps surprisingly, strongly influenced by Japanese art. Japonism became a part of Impressionism, Aestheticism and Art Nouveau, with Japanese aesthetics, themes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jun 24, 2014

Without a canon, Japanese pop won't blast off

Exploring the world of Japanese music can be a baffling experience for those who don't speak the language.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 21, 2014

How a master circled the system

Favorites of today's museum-going public, the lushly colorful, sensuous and grotesque paintings of beautiful women by Tsuchida Bakusen (1887-1936) have long been written into the canon of nihonga (Japanese-style painting). It is easy to forget, however, just how transgressive Bakusen's images were at...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 20, 2014

Insurers balk at cost as gene tests unlock medical mysteries

Aimee Robeson just wants an answer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 18, 2014

Cocoon Kabuki enters a new era

Theatre Cocoon in the Bunkamura performance-arts hub of Tokyo's vibrant Shibuya district has always been a popular venue specializing in new works by fresh contemporary writers. Emblematic of this is Cocoon Kabuki, its unique series begun in 1994 under the then Artistic Director Kazuyoshi Kushida.
WORLD
Jun 17, 2014

50 Sherlock stories 'in public domain'

Fifty Sherlock Holmes works published before 1923 by Arthur Conan Doyle are in the public domain, a U.S. appeals court said Monday, and others may refer to them freely without paying licensing fees to the Scottish writer's estate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 17, 2014

Blonde Redhead gets comfortable with past records

Formed in 1993 by Japanese singer Kazu Makino and Italian twins Simone and Amedeo Pace, and forged in the noisy underbelly of the New York alternative scene, Blonde Redhead has charted a path that has taken it from screeching underground noise rock to fragile, glacial, minimalist melody without ever...

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
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