Events & Programmes Archive

The Marugoto Japanese Language & Culture Course (Starter A1 Level) is a new kind of course for absolute beginners of Japanese. 

Hideyuki Katsumata is multi-disciplinary artist who creates murals, prints, and videos featuring way out characters and forms saturated with vivid colours

Come and see us to find out more about studying Japanese!

This autumn, Dundee Contemporary Arts has invited Japanese artist Hideyuki Katsumata to transform their galleries into psychedelic landscapes of cartoon strips. The exhibition, titled USO de HONTO, features a large-scale mural and prints made at the DCA, and is the artist's biggest exhibition to date and first ever in the UK.

With the turn of the millennium being a tipping point for some, contentious questions have been raised in the direction of Japanese contemporary art

Iconoclastic auteur Shinya Tsukamoto is considered to be one of the most important filmmakers to emerge from Japan in recent decades. Achieving cult status from the release of his low-budget cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man in 1989, Tsukamoto's films have since, regardless of setting or theme, retained his trademark experimental and brutal style, capturing nightmarish visions of human existence. Often compared to Hollywood directors David Lynch and David Cronenberg, Tsukamoto has influenced many more (including Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher) and helped pave the way for many other contemporary Japanese filmmakers exhibiting their films overseas. In this special talk, Tsukamoto will journey through his filmmaking career, looking at his ground-breaking body of work up until his most recent film, the anti-war epic Fires on the Plain, to be screened at this year's Raindance Film Festival. Reflecting on the current state of the Japanese film industry, he will also reveal his decision to remain independent as a director, and his creative aspirations in taking multiple roles in his films; directing, writing, producing and often acting in his own productions. This talk will explore Tsukamoto's unique cinematic vision and offer an insight into the mind of Japan's most exciting and uncompromising director.

The Japan Foundation will be supporting this year's Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival, a festival screening the best in Japanese animation and culture. This year the festival will be taking place in two locations in Wales and will feature a number of films including A Letter to Momo (dir. Hiroyuki Okiura, 2011) and Tiger & Bunny: The Rising (dir. Yoshitomo Yonetani, 2014). For details of the full programme, please visit the Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival website.

The Takarazuka Revue Company is a theatre company with a 100 year history in Japan and is well-known for its stylised musicals performed by an all-female cast. The lavish stage productions have been enthusiastically appreciated by tens of thousands of devoted fans who dedicate their time, money and energy to the company, and who make the tickets to Takarazuka notoriously difficult to obtain. Reflecting on the fever pitch of Takarazuka fandom, Naomi Miyamoto, Lecturer at Ritsumeikan University and author of the book Sociology of Takarazuka Fans will explore the characteristics of Takarazuka fans and the role that fandom has played in Takarazuka theatre, considering how vital its fan culture may be to its ongoing popularity. As a comparison, Dr Alan Cummings, Senior Teaching Fellow in Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies will look into the nature of Kabuki's aficionados, examining fandom in Japan’s traditional, similarly stylised yet all-male theatre. Offering an often unexplored aspect, this event is to provide an opportunity to compare and contrast how these distinct theatres keep attracting enthusiastic audiences for many decades, through social changes facing Japan.

The Japan Foundation is pleased to support Sensoria 2015, a festival of film, music and digital art taking place in Sheffield. Now in its eighth year, the festival will feature a number unique events based on the theme of ‘Altered States’, and will include a performance by the Japanese psychedelic band, Bo Ningen. For further details of the events, please visit: sensoria.org.uk

The Japan Foundation will be supporting the ‘Way Out East’ Strand at this year’s Raindance Film Festival. Now in its 23rd year, along with 100 features and 200 short films, the festival shows a wide variety of Japanese films, form the underground to the up-and-coming and established film scene. For details of the full programme, please visit the Raindance Film Festival website. The Japanese titles include: Asleep Fires on the Plain Obon Brothers Rolling Slum-Polis That’s It The Birth Of Saké

The Japan Foundation and Centre Européen d'Etudes Japonaises d'Alsace (CEEJA) are now accepting applications for participation in Japanese Study Seminar: Everyday Life and Culture (日常生活文化) scheduled for 21st and 22nd September, 2015 at CEEJA, in Kientzheim, France. The official language of the seminar will be JAPANESE. This seminar aims to encourage networking among young researchers on Japan in Europe and further promote Japanese Studies in Europe. Participants will join a two-day intensive workshop in the cozy and intimate atmosphere of CEEJA's facility in Kientzheim where they will present and discuss their current research projects with fellow participants and guest mentors from Japan. The theme of this year’s seminar will be “Everyday Life and Culture (日常生活文化).”  We are calling for applications from young researchers in Europe specialising in politics, history, sociology, literature, arts, language, philosophy, economics, architecture, religion, etc.  The deadline for applications is 30 June, 2015. For further details including eligibility and application procedures, please visit the Japan Foundation Tokyo website here.

Japan Foundation will be exhibiting at Japan Matsuri, London's annual festival of Japanese culture. Come to our stand for freebies, our Japan Quiz, information about learning more Japanese language and culture, or just to say "konnichiwa!" More information about the event can be found here.