Japan Society Presents REST IN PEACE, NEW YORK A Public Forum On Theater, Women And Immigration

Japan Society welcomes back Shirotama Hitsujiya, internationally known performance artist, artistic director of the experimental theater company YUBIWA Hotel and founder of AJOKAI (Asian Women Performing Arts Collective), for a residency and public forum focused on the experiences of Vietnamese women who have immigrated to New York. In this Spring residency, as part of an ongoing project collecting the oral histories of Southeast Asian women, Hitsujiya will delve into New York's vibrant Vietnamese community through a series of immersive studies and conversations, compiling the personal stories of the women she encounters into a script that will be transcribed onto a long rice-paper handscroll. Ultimately, Hitsujiya's findings will be shared in Rest in Peace, New York., an intimate roundtable discussion during which the scroll will be passed around and read aloud as part of a guided reflection for participants, including New York-based female theater artists and ticketholders in this special one-night-only event. Rest in Peace, New York. takes place Monday, May 14 at 7:30 PM at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street). This event, part of Japan Society's 110th Anniversary Season, aligns with the Spring 2018 Performing Arts focus on deepening the Society's relationship with New York artists.

Rest in Peace, New York., comprised of a nearly month-long residency culminating in the public roundtable on Monday, May 14, is presented by Japan Society in connection with the Asian Women Performing Arts Collective AJOKAI, a networking organization for female artists, directors, producers, translators and researchers in the theater, dance and film throughout Asia. The project Rest in Peace, New York. is a continuation of Hitsujiya's series which includes Snow, Frost, Cloud, Dew, Hail, Sleet, Hail in which she interviewed Southeast Asian women who emigrated to marry and live in the rural village of Tsumari, Niigata (presented in 2015 at the Eichigo-Tsumari Trienniale) and a second project supported by a research trip to Vietnam where Hitsujiya visited women living in an ethnic minority farming village.

This project reunites Shirotama Hitsujiya with Japan Society, following the Society's 2006 presentation of Candies: girlish hardcore, by Hitsujiya's company YUBIWA Hotel, which explored the cultural phenomena and images of girlhood and femininity found in contemporary Japan. This performance embodied a longstanding characteristic of Hitsujiya's work, which relentlessly attempts to reimagine and represent the issues of contemporary womanhood in Japan through interwoven spectacles that often include dance, text, mask and lush costumes.

Shirotama Hitsujiya, born in Hokkaido in 1967, is a playwright, director, performer, and the artistic director of YUBIWA Hotel. In 2006, she was chosen as one of "The World's 100 Most Influential Japanese Women" by Newsweek Japan. Most recently, her work has jumped out of theater spaces into site specific environments such as the ocean, trains and tunnels. She has been presented in art festivals nationally and internationally including Brazil, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Poland and the United States. In 2014, she started an art project called Tokyo, Soup, Blanket and Travelogue produced by the Tokyo Arts Council that explores how these four topics interrelate within isolated and distinctive communities throughout Tokyo. In September 2017, she directed a work for Sapporo International Art Festival entitled Rest In Peace, Sapporo that created surreal scenescapes for audience members to enjoy while riding Sapporo's iconic green streetcars through the city. Recently, her role as AJOKAI's co-founder has extended the scope of her artistic endeavors to include the oral histories of women in Southeast Asia as inspiration for her vivid and deeply collaborative projects.

Japan Society's Fall 2017-Winter 2018 Performing Arts Season featured the second installment of the NOH-NOW Series, featuring extraordinary events in dance and theater. The Series launched with the North American premiere of Luca Veggetti's Left-Right-Left (October 13-14, 2017) and continued with Rikyu-Enoura: A New Noh Play by Hiroshi Sugimoto (November 3-5, 2017), Siti Company's Hanjo (December 7-9, 2017) and Satoshi Miyagi's Mugen Noh Othello, presented as part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival (January 11-14, 2018). Japan Society's current Performing Arts Season kicked off in September with the North American Premiere of Moto Osada's opera, Four Nights of Dream, (September 13-16, 2017). These events, coinciding with Japan Society's milestone 110th Anniversary, united celebrated artists from the U.S. and Japan, delivering world class cultural offerings while continuing Japan Society's mission to deepen mutual understanding between the two nations into the Society's twelfth decade. The popular NOH-NOW Series debuted to acclaim in 2007 timed to Japan Society's centennial; and this season, ten years later, the Society proudly served up a new edition highlighting how contemporary artists continue to draw inspiration from one of Japan's centuries-old traditions. In Spring 2018, the Performing Arts Program focuses on events deepening Japan Society's relationship with New York artists. With that aim in mind, the Performing Arts Program recently offered a staged reading of Manhood by Japanese playwright Hideto Iwai, led by New York-based director Sarah Hughes as the 13th installment of the Society's Play Reading Series of contemporary Japanese plays in English translation (March 26, 2018). Following Rest in Peace, New York: Theater, Women and Immigration (May 14), Japan Society will present a concert by local koto and shamisen masters Yumi Kurosawa and Yoko Reikano Kimura (May 24) and a solo concert by celebrated jazz pianist Makoto Ozone (June 7), with additional details to be announced.

Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has introduced nearly 700 of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. Programs range from the traditional arts of noh, kyogen, bunraku and kabuki to cutting-Edge Theater, dance and music. The Program also commissions new works from non-Japanese artists, produces national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs. "At once diverse and daring, the program stands toe to toe with some of the most comprehensive cultural exchange endeavors today." --Back Stage.

Founded in 1907, Japan Society in New York City presents sophisticated, topical and accessible experiences of Japanese art and culture, and facilitates the exchange of ideas, knowledge and innovation between the U.S. and Japan. More than 200 events annually encompass world-class exhibitions, dynamic classical and cutting-edge contemporary performing arts, film premieres and retrospectives, workshops and demonstrations, tastings, family activities, language classes, and a range of high-profile talks and expert panels that present open, critical dialogue on issues of vital importance to the U.S., Japan and East Asia.

During the 2017-18 season, Japan Society celebrates its 110th anniversary with expanded programming that builds toward a richer, more globally interconnected 21st century: groundbreaking creativity in the visual and performing arts, unique access to business insiders and cultural influencers, and critical focus on social and educational innovation, illuminating our world beyond borders.

Tickets are $10/$8 Japan Society members. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Box Office at (212) 715-1258 or in person at Japan Society (M-F 11:00 AM-6:00 PM and Sat-Sun 11:00 AM-5:00 PM). Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street, between First and Second Avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 at 42nd Street-Grand Central Station or the E and V at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street). For more information call (212) 832-1155 or visit www.japansociety.org.