Japan is in the spotlight this weekend! Dance, traditional music, grand orchestra, tea and incense ceremonies, encounters… From Friday, March 28th to Sunday, March 30th, the festival invites the public to discover a unique culture.
Le Printemps des Arts will begin its journey to Japan on Friday, March 28th at the Rainier III Auditorium with the Orchestre National de Lyon, conducted by Eivind Gulberg-Jensen. Cello, alto flute, harp, shakuhachi, and biwa will blend together on pieces by Toru Takemitsu – “Toward the Sea II”, “November Steps” – and by Claude Debussy – “Suite for Cello and Orchestra”, “La Mer”.
“The 3 minutes before the concert” by Frédéric Durieux will open the evening with Constance Ronzatti on violin, Askar Ishangaliyev on cello, and Vincent Lhermet on accordion.
On the following day, Saturday, March 29th, the evening will begin with an Ikebana, a demonstration of Japanese floral art, by the Buddhist temple of the Silver Pavilion of Kyoto to music by Toshio Hosokawa, performed by the Diotima Quartet and Mayumi Miyata on the shô (mouth organ). Following will be a traditional music concert with Tadashi Tajima on the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute imported from China in the 8th century, and a Butô dance demonstration with the dancer-choreographer Nanami Kohshou and the Compagnie Danse Sauvage. Butô, a unique spectacle invented in the 1960s, aims to echo the trauma of the atomic bomb. This “dance of the dark body,” curled in upon itself, breaks away from traditional Japanese dances.
Musicologist Véronique Brindeau will offer an “encounter with the works” around traditional Japanese music at 6:30 PM at the Beaumarchais Salon at the Hôtel de Paris.
On Sunday, March 30th, Le Printemps des Arts offers a day of discovering Japanese culture from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM and from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM in the Salle Empire. In the morning, musicians Mayumi Miyata and Noako Kikuchi will introduce the public to the shô, a traditional mouth organ, and the koto, a zither dating back to the origins of the country’s musical history.
The afternoon will be dedicated to traditional ceremonies (incense, tea, zen thought) with the Silver Pavilion of Kyoto. The Diotima Quartet will also give a concert featuring compositions by Toshio Hosokawa – including “Distant Voices”, commissioned by Le Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo and SO.GE.DA. – as well as by Noriko Miura and Maurice Ravel.
JAPAN WEEKEND | Friday, March 28th to Sunday, March 30th
