Heartfelt congratulations to our friend and local dance legend, Heidi Durning, for her upcoming 60th birthday celebrations! Join Heidi and her friends at Urbanguild for a three-day festival of music and dance at Urbanguild later this month! Tapestry - Dance & Music Project Celebrating Heidi S. Durning’s 60th Birthday in November a collaboration of traditional & … [Read more...]
Maiko Dinner Show at Kyoto Restaurant Yasakadori Enraku
Many thanks to Anna Kase for sending in the following information. Much has been written about Kyoto's maiko, the famous apprentice geisha (properly called geiko in Kyoto) who entertain wealthy guests with traditional music, dance, songs, games and good conversation. In the past it was quite difficult for overseas visitors to gain access to the traditional tea houses … [Read more...]
A Close Encounter with Butoh Dance at the Kyoto Butoh-kan
Today we have a special guest post from Florentyna Leow on the world’s first theatre expressly devoted to regular Butoh performances. Butoh is an avant-garde dance style originating in Japan. First developed by Kazuo Ono and Hijikata Tatsumi in the 1960s, one of the central features of Butoh is its very indefinability - it is difficult to attach a definition or set of … [Read more...]
“The Question of Butoh” – A Celebration; May 18th – 24th
The following information was sent in by our friend Bridget Scott, for further details please see the website: http://butohtoi.wix.com/meguru What is "Butoh"? What is "Butoh" asking of us who are living today? For one week from Monday 18th May to Sunday 24th, a series of butoh performances, workshops and lectures will take place in Kyoto. There will be performances, … [Read more...]
Images from Velvet Moon Vol. 115
What a joy it was to see Sean Roe back in Urbanguild this evening - and for the first time in four years! And so much talent in tonight's show too! I was particularly impressed this time by two of the dancers: Misuzu and Chian. Watch out for them in the images and videos below. Mangrove Kipling Cozy (Colin Garvey & Yozy) みすず + 山崎昭典 … [Read more...]
Velvet Moon: Live Music & Dance @ Urbanguild, Kyoto; March 25th 2015
I'm very happy to report that our old friend Sean Roe will be returning to Urbanguild on March 25th as one half of the sound and video improvisation unit amallsのskcaj! VELVET MOON Vol. 115 DATE: Wednesday March 25th DOORS OPEN: 19:00 / SHOW STARTS: 19:30 ADVANCE TICKETS: 2000 yen with 1 drink / TICKETS ON THE DOOR: 2300 yen with 1 drink Here is the full line up for … [Read more...]
Happy in Kyoto
Look what I found! And nicely timed with the sakura too - what could be happier than that? There's some neat skipping here. Watch and enjoy! … [Read more...]
Hanezu Odori – Dance performance at Kyoto’s Zuishin-in Temple
From the Japan Times, Girls in pale pink traditional costumes will dance and sing in a “Hanezu Odori” performance at Zuishin-in Temple in Kyoto on March 30. The performance will be held three or four times during the day. The temple is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m, and admission will be ¥1,000. The temple is a five-minute walk from Ono Station on the Tozai Line. For … [Read more...]
Sailing Without the Wind: A Performance by Peter Golightly & Bruno the Bad Boy
Billed as a "evening of music, dance and life", this show looks to be amazing and it bears a very important message... Peter Golightly has kindly written to tell us more about it: "I'm a long time Kyoto resident and I've been doing the dance singing theater thing for better than 30 years here. Bruno has been around for about 18 years. He's a performance artist who … [Read more...]
SONORIA by Hanna Preuss December 1st & 2nd @ Atelier Gekken
Thanks to Micah Gampel for the following event information: Please come for live performance art from Europe and special event this Saturday and Sunday December 1st & 2nd. Celebrating the anniversary of 20 years of friendship between Slovenia and Japan. With a short film of a Bunraku collaboration performed last Saturday in Wachi, Kyoto. You will enjoy a performance … [Read more...]
Shakuhachi & Flamenco Live with Yugao – This Weekend!
Our old friend the shakuhachi player, Koichi Yoshida, and his band Yugao have an autumn show at Zac Baran this weekend and the wonderful flamenco dancer Carmen Alvarez is back from Spain to join the performance! You can see some clips of Carmen in action with Yugao from a performance last year here. A little birdy tells me that Koichi is planning to move to France soon... so … [Read more...]
Summer Spirits Reviewed
Christopher Fryman and his friends put on a splendid show with Summer Spirits last Sunday. Opening with a fanfare of trumpets the musicians and dancers paraded into Urbanguild before settling into a carnivalesque performance of what Christopher calls "structured improvisation". Basically he gives the musicians some loose musical themes to play with and then they take it where … [Read more...]
Summer Spirits ~ A Non-Smoking Event at Urbanguild!!!
On August 19th (Sunday) Christopher Fryman and Friends present a new production: Summer Spirits ~ A Tale of The Earth - Dance and Music Performance. Rather an impressive list of performers on this one, so should be good, and pretty amazingly it is NO SMOKING (except outside by the elevators) which I think is pretty much a first for Urbanguild. I think we should all … [Read more...]
Velvet Moon
Velvet Moon is an ongoing music, dance and performance event that our friend Ryotaro Sudo began to organize 20 years ago. Originally held at Club Metro before finding a brief home at Cafe Independants, it is now held regularly at Urbanguild. Ryotaro describes this event as an opportunity for artists who might not be able to fill a full show by themselves to flex their creative … [Read more...]
