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Thirty-seven Visions of Japan
| Article
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17361 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1990 |
2,152 Words |
| Author
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Michael Gibson
Michael Gibson, author of a number of books on art, is the
Paris art critic for the International Herald Tribune and a
frequent contributor to publications in Europe and the United
States. |
Every two years, over the past twenty, the Belgian festival known as Europalia has invited a different country of Europe to present an encyclopedic overview of its culture and history. This season, taking an ambitious leap to the far side of planet, its organizers decided to give the honors to Japan.
The very scope of the undertaking was impressive: It included no less than thirty-seven exhibitions, large and small, devoted to various aspects of Japanese culture as seen through its arts, as well as six theatrical events (Kabuki, Noh, Bunraku, and contemporary groups such as the Ninagawa and Hideki Companies), six concerts of traditional Japanese music, and thirty-three of Western classical music performed by Japanese virtuosos.
Add to this a smattering of Japanese Jazz and rock music, a "computer music festival," a display of Japanese martial arts, a cinema festival presenting one hundred Japanese films, dance events, the inevitable tea ceremony, and half a dozen symposia on such subjects as economics, education, music, and the woman's place in contemporary Japan, and you begin to get an inkling of what the Belgian organizers took upon themselves.
The most prestigious event took place in Brussels, but other Belgian cities also welcomed some outstanding exhibitions concerts, and theatrical events (after all, it takes less time to go from Brussels to Antwerp than cross town in any major city during rush hour). This time Europalia even extended beyond the frontiers of Belgium, with some of the events taking place in Luxemburg, France, Holland, and Great Britain.
The name of the venture is derived, we are told, from that of Opalia, a Roman harvest festival in honor of Ops, goddess of fertility and abundance. Its financing nonetheless depends on sponsorship, and Japanese sponsors were not easy to persuade at first. The floodgates opened, however, on the day the new emperor appeared before the Japanese diet and informed it that, having accepted the invitation to be honorary president of the 1989 Europalia when he was still crown prince, he wished to remain so now that he had acceded to the throne. No sooner had he spoken that offers from Japanese firms began to pour in from all quarters. Ultimately tow-thirds of the funds required for this Europalia were provided by Japanese sources.
To mark the importance that the Japanese government attached to the undertaking, Crown Prince Naru-hito came to inaugurate the major exhibition in
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