Collection Japan
Larger-than-life calligraphy, giant bamboo weaving, and robots both real and toy... experience the vibrant diversity of the arts across Japan.
©Margot Schulman Photography
Japan: Arts & Culture
This is your passport to the arts and culture of Japan as experienced through the Kennedy Center's Japan! culture + hyperculture festival (February 2008). This series will help you learn about some of the major art forms in Japan—art, theater, dance, music, manga, anime, robots, and visual art installations.
Shigeo Kawashima - Wa
Shigeo Kawashima - Wa
The Japanese have a long and deep relationship with bamboo, and their culture has produced the most beautiful art in this medium. Shigeo Kawashima's sculptures take bamboo as an artistic medium to a new level. His work WA ("Ring") was commissioned for the festival and constructed on site.
Koji Kakinuma - Otsukimi
Koji Kakinuma - Otsukimi
JAPAN! culture + hyperculture was marked by a festive Otsukimi (Japanese moon-viewing) evening featuring a special Millennium Stage performance of “Trancework” and “Eternal Now” by shodo performing artist Koji Kakinuma, accompanied by the taiko group AUN. The event took place outside under the full moon on the Kennedy Center's South Plaza.
Maywa Denki
Maywa Denki
Founded in 1993 by two brothers, Maywa Denki is a performance art troupe with a unique style. Each piece of their work is called a "product" and a live performance or exhibition is held as a "product demonstration." Although they're known and appreciated as artists, their promotion strategies are full of variety - besides exhibitions and live stage performances, they produce music, videos, writing, toys, stationery, and electronic devices.
Shin Tanaka - Papercraft
Shin Tanaka - Papercraft
Shin Tanaka is a Japanese artist, graffiti writer, paper toy creator, designer who has worked with some of the biggest names in street fashion and designer toys. Born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1980, Tanaka’s claim to fame is a vast range of elaborate paper constructions ranging from adorably hip and colorful toy monsters, to spot-on replicas of cutting edge footwear. His work has led to collaborations with Nike, Adidas and Reebok, for specially commissioned shoes, and scores of gallery showcases throughout the world. Many of his original creations are posted on his website and made available for viewers to download and cut out into their very own paper toys. Shin Tanaka’s playful and fun designs are appealing for creative youngsters as much as they are for the most hardened and cynical hipster.
Koji Kakinuma - Trancework
Koji Kakinuma - Trancework
Calligraphy artist Koji Kakinuma presents one of his trademark innovations, Trancework, in which he paints countless repetitions of a simple, powerful phrase, producing a giant calligraphic work. Japanese fue player Kaoru Watanabe and contemporary percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani accompanied the performance.
Robotopia Rising - Asimo, Actroid & More
Robotopia Rising - Asimo, Actroid & More
At the forefront of hyperculture, Japan's robots are at once amazing works of art and fantastic feats of engineering. Japan has been at the vanguard of global robot development and technology since the 1970s and continues to invent new ways these machines can aid, entertain, and inspire mankind. Robotopia Rising was a robot extravaganza that highlighted the science and culture of Japanese robotics. This groundbreaking celebration was a tribute to Japanese craftsmanship and technology as well as a preview of the future. The most sophisticated robots in the world were present, and daily shows will provided a fascinating showcase for all of their amazing talents.
Kokoro's Actroid DER2 greeted visitors throughout the festival, talking to them and even answering their questions. Developed with cutting-edge technology, including Advanced Media, Inc.'s voice recognition "AmiVoice" support, the Actroid DER2 has an astonishingly human-like appearance and a great range of gestures and facial expressions.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd's Wakamaru can converse with people via voice and facial recognition with a vocabulary of up to 10,000 Japanese words and will be shaking visitors' hands.
Honda's Asimo was designed to operate freely in the human living space and be people-friendly. It can walk smoothly, climb stairs, communicate, and recognize people's voices and faces.
Toyota's Partner Robot was developed with artificial lips that move with the same finesse as human ones, enabling it to play the trumpet.
Oki Dub
Oki Dub
In this concert by Oki, the most prominent tonkori performer in the world, his band and female singers of Marewrew, Kennedy Center audiences heard music that fused Reggae, African and Electronica with Ainu folk melodies. During the concert a video screen displayed beautiful images from the Ainu tradition. The tonkori is a long, flat instrument that produces its own distinct sound and is the only stringed instrument in the Karafuto Ainu musical tradition. Oki’s contemporary approach has won him praise in Japan and around the world.
Tadao Ando - Four Cubes to Contemplate Our Environment
Tadao Ando - Four Cubes to Contemplate Our Environment
With his buildings sprawling all corners of the globe, world-renowned architect Tadao Ando has won virtually every award Japan can bestow for architecture and the arts, as well as major international prizes, including the 1995 Pritzker Prize and the Gold Medal of Architecture from the French Academy of Architecture. He works primarily in reinforced concrete, but he also utilizes steel and glass. His projects define spaces in unique ways that allow for constantly changing patterns of light and wind. Constructed on-site specifically for the festival, Tadao Ando presents this world-premiere glass installation, which explores sustainability and the environment.
Matt Alt: Giant Robots & Jumbo Machinders
Matt Alt: Giant Robots & Jumbo Machinders
Matt Alt walks you through his extensive collection of Japanese jumbo machinder toys, which were on display in the Kennedy Center's South Gallery. Matt Alt's childhood obsession with the Japanese giant robot led him to major in Japanese and International Relations at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Hakata Kinjishi Taiko & Hakata Koma
Hakata Kinjishi Taiko & Hakata Koma
Hakata Kinjishi Taiko and Hakata Koma is led by siblings Jyuraku and Syouraku Chikushi and performs Japanese taiko drumming and traditional Hakata Top-spinning act. These drummers use a wide range of stick percussion instruments to meld their drumbeat with other genres such as jazz and rock while integrating a traditional Hakata Top-spinning act into this unique sound experience. Playing with tops is an old form of child's play in many countries. In Japan, the birth of this koma (top-spinning) art came about in a unique style with the use of a top in a series of tricks. The origin of this top art, said to have come from the Hakata Koma, has a long history of more than 400 years and was first developed in Japan as a magnificent form of entertainment (recorded in 2008 at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC).
JAPAN! culture + hyperculture: Robotopia Rising
JAPAN! culture + hyperculture: Robotopia Rising
Author of Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots, Tim Hornyak and Japanese robot toy ("jumbo machinders") expert Matt Alt take students on a historical journey detailing anime, manga (including Tetsuwan Atomu's iconic Astro Boy), mechanical karakuri dolls, and the rise of robots and androids in Japan. Take a virtual tour of the robot exhibition, a part of 2008's JAPAN! culture + hyperculture at the Kennedy Center, featuring some of Japan's most popular robots, including therapy robot seal Paro, movement and balance-masters Chroino and FT, Sony's robotic pet dog Aibo, Tomy's tiny fighter i-Sobot, household helper Wakamauru, the trumpet-playing Toyota Partner Robot, the life-like android Actroid, and Honda's robot superstar Asimo. in addition to the student robotics Team 194 RoboCats from Battlefield High School, meet two researchers who have made remarkable progress in the field of robotics: Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro and Robo Garage's creator Tomotaka Takahashi (recorded in 2008 at C. D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, VA).
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Producer
Kenny Neal
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Updated
January 7, 2020
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