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ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 18, 2014

Many of China's TV shows, films are rubbish, top government official says

Many of the television shows, movies and publications produced in China each year are rubbish, and the solution is to banish decadent themes and concentrate on uplifting social values instead, a senior government minister has said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2014

Uffizi highs of the Renaissance

There's something quaint about the main painting at the "Galleria Degli Uffizi: Arte a Firenze da Botticelli a Bronzino — verso una 'Maniera Moderna' " exhibition now showing at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work, "Pallas and the Centaur" (c. 1480-85), a large canvas by the Italian Renaissance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2014

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet: 'He may be a blonde American boy but he has the soul of a self-effacing Zen monk'

In "The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet," the running-away letter 10-year-old T.S. Spivet (Kyle Catlett) leaves for his parents has got to be one of the most moving epistles in cinema history. Brimming with modesty, formal but warmly polite, it could have been written by a nice Japanese son. "I have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2014

Beneath the disarray lies a struggle

One of the joys of covering a Willem de Kooning exhibition, such as the one at the Bridgestone Museum of Art, is catching up with the jargon that surrounds his work. As he was a leading light of New York's postwar abstract expressionist movement, who later veered in the direction of figurative art, de...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 29, 2014

High drama at Festival/Tokyo

News in March that 38-year-old Chiaki Soma had suddenly been removed from the post of program director of Festival/Tokyo, which she had held since it started in 2009, set many theater lovers worrying about the future of the flagship drama event whose stature at home and abroad had only grown with her...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 29, 2014

Stretch your fright nights right into the weekend

This year, many people in Japan celebrated Halloween early. Last weekend saw parades, parties and trick-or-treating at special events across the country, but for those who grew up in places that historically celebrate the holiday, Oct. 25 may have been a bit too soon to get spooked.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Oct 24, 2014

Disney's 'Big Hero 6' animates a bridging of cultures

This week's Tokyo International Film Festival is hot on animation, featuring screenings of the collected works of Hideaki Anno, creator of the epic franchise, "Neon Genesis Evangelion," and 3-D shorts directed by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, producer of "Donkey Kong" and "Super Mario Bros." But the festival's...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 17, 2014

BIFF 2014 plays down unavoidable controversies

The biggest event of the year for South Korea's film industry is the opening night of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which marked its 19th year Oct. 2 to 11. Whether or not they have films screening at the festival, almost all the major Korean movie stars show up and strut the red carpet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 24, 2014

Kyoto Experiment marries form to cutting-edge content

Kyoto Experiment, the city's monthlong international performing-arts festival that debuted in 2010 and has been growing in popularity in the vanguard of contemporary performance every year since, is now set to embark on its fifth and most radical edition.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 20, 2014

Glimpses of Lafcadio Hearn's Matsue

The Matsue-bound train I boarded at Okayama Station was pointedly named Yakumo, a reference to its destination's best-known former resident: Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), whose adopted Japanese name was Yakumo Koizumi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 17, 2014

Korea's new 'Goddess' of musicals

The central Seoul district of Daehangno is renowned for its small theaters in much the same way as Shimokitazawa is in Tokyo. But whereas the latter boasts teens of venues, Daehangno has upward of 140 — so really there's no comparison.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 28, 2014

Former aide to Jasper Johns admits stealing, selling artwork for $6.5 million

A former assistant to renowned American contemporary artist Jasper Johns pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling nearly two dozen of Johns' works without his knowledge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

How Japan's art inspired the West

In the decades after Japan was forcibly opened to large-scale international trade in the early 1850s, a fever spread across Europe for items from the exotic country: its textiles, ceramics, paper fans, woodblock prints and more. Meanwhile, the term "Japonism" was coined to describe works made in Europe...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

'National Treasures of the Munakata Shrine'

The location of the city of Munakata, on the coast of northern Kyushu and close to Oshima and Okinoshima islands, helped it become a historical cultural hub that welcomed incoming crafts shipped from Korea, China and Persia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2014

Daigoji Temple celebrates its collection

World Heritage Site, Daigoji Temple, was founded on the summit of Mount Kasatori in southeastern Kyoto when the monk Rigen Daishi Shobo (832-909) is said to have discovered a spring from which flowed the "ultimate taste, representing the highest state of Buddhist wisdom." From 876, he had produced statues...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2014

'20th Anniversary Commemorative Exhibition: Basically. Forever'

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, which is known for its support of young photographers, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is presenting a number of works from the Yamanashi Prefecture museum's collection.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2014

'Into the Future: Visual Deception II'

Trompe l'oeil (optical-illusion art) painting has a long history, dating back to the 17th century, but trick art is not always about paintings that create illusions using realistic three-dimensional imagery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2014

Europe's rich tapestry unites two contrasting theater fests

As I often go to theater festivals in Europe, I was delighted to hear about the Schweizer Theatertreffen (Swiss Theater Encounter), a brand-new event being held in May. And since I'd already planned a trip that month to the Berlin Theater Festival, it was a no-brainer to check out this new Swiss kid...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 24, 2014

'Cool and Breezy: Summer Greetings through Paintings and Ceramics'

Just like its title suggests, this exhibition aims to show viewers that feeling cool and refreshed is not something that can only be experienced physically.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 22, 2014

Pianist Adachi delves further into the world of Croatian classical music

During his six-year stay in Croatia, pianist Tomohiro Adachi was introduced to a remarkable woman named Dora Pejacevic.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 21, 2014

Chores, charges and chin-wags: the chōnaikai ties that bind

Perhaps fearing that the entire council could fall apart, some neighborhood associations resort to drastic measures to keep members active and in line. The culture clash is not foreigner vs. Japanese, but traditional vs. modern.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 18, 2014

Contemporary art is not lost in space

While space art is a relatively small field — in which works that have actually been created in space is an even smaller subset — it can only become more commonplace as costs fall and the private sector promises to open up space travel to non-specialists, albeit very wealthy ones.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2014

Europe rewards edgy dramatists

Tim Etchells, artistic director of Forced Entertainment, the English company whose "The Coming Storm" was a highlight of last year's Festival/Tokyo, told me then that they now play abroad more than at home — mainly because festival organizers pay their costs. In contrast, producers are loathe to take...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2014

'Takehiko Inoue interprets Gaudi's Universe'

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) left behind an unrivaled legacy of Modernist architecture — Casa Vicens, Casa Mila, the famous unfinished basilica Sagrada Familia and many more unusual structures. His imaginative, often colorful works inspired other architects and artists, and continues to do so today.
Japan Times
JAPAN / JAPAN TIMES FORUM ON FEMALE SCIENCE MAJORS
Jun 30, 2014

Examining women's roles in Japan's corporate structure

Rikejo, or women majoring in the sciences, are currently under the spotlight in Japan. As the country faces a severe labor shortage, a declining birthrate and a rapidly aging population, there is a need to employ more female talent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014

Kids' stuff that adults need to see

Perhaps in the wake of this attack on seriousness, many artists have since taken refuge in childishness, whimsy or playfulness, though these values have been carefully rationed in 'Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children,' with the emphasis being more on showing childhood as a state of vulnerability and transformation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 18, 2014

Female dramatists dispel gender concern

Last month in Berlin, in a conversation with Annemie Vanackere, artistic director at the city's cutting-edge Hebbel am Ufer company, she was saying how she loved contemporary Japanese theater, and how HAU had worked with several Japanese dramatists. Then she suddenly asked me: "Why were they all men?...

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