1979: Remembering Japan Today
In the spring of 1979, Japan Society launched Japan Today: A Celebration of the People and Culture of Modern Japan, a three-month festival introducing contemporary Japan to U.S. audiences held in seven major American cities—Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, and Miami, with smaller Japan Today festivals in Albuquerque, Aspen, and St. Louis. Japan Today was the brainchild of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the third in a series that started with Canada (1977) and Mexico (1978). Japan Society was tapped as lead organizer and coordinator for Japan Today, which was—and remains—the largest such undertaking in the Society’s history. Of the seven “official” Japan Today cities, most also employed or designated a coordinator with overall responsibility for the local programs, and most also formed committees to handle local publicity, fundraising, exhibitions, and special events, connecting curators, programmers, city officials, and others to the Japan resources in their communities.
The documents from Japan Today take up an entire box in Japan Society’s Archives, so it seems only natural to explore some of the history behind this unique project. Japan Today took 1.5 years from planning to implementation, with an overall budget of $2 million from grants and sponsors—that’s worth about $9,681,000 in current dollars! The program was conceived as a new venture in public education that was to give Americans an opportunity to sample the diverse facets of contemporary Japan through an array of exhibitions, films, discussions, performances, and special events, all representing the best of Japan.
Today, it’s easy to forget that there was no internet in 1979 and that digital technology was still in its infancy. Although 1979 saw the invention of the personal computer and voicemail as well as the first Sony Walkman, information still traveled slowly and selectively throughout the world. At that time Japan had become the world’s second largest economic power as well as being a major investor in the United States. Few Americans, however, had any knowledge of Japan or Japanese culture and society. It was during this time that Japan’s rich culture provided the buds that blossomed into Japan Today.
Ultimately, Japan Today presented more than 530 events sponsored by over 180 cultural institutions and organizations, reaching an estimated 850,000 people. The heart of the festival was a group of core programs that traveled to key cities: Six panels featuring prominent Japanese and Americans addressed topics of contemporary interest including politics, economics, culture, and society; the Kobe Abe Studio Theatre’s production of the avant-garde drama An Exhibition of Images: The Little Elephant Is Dead; and the 12-film series 3 Decades: Postwar Japanese Society Through Film.
At Japan Society, Chanoyu: Japanese Tea Ceremony (April 27-June 17, 1979, organized by Rand Castile for Japan House Gallery, and drawn entirely from public and private collections in Japan) represented the connoisseurship of the great tea masters from the 16th century to contemporary Japan. Grand Master Soshitsu Sen XV of Urasenke presented a lecture demonstration and tea masters from Japan gave daily public demonstrations throughout the exhibition’s duration. A tea hut was imported from Japan and reassembled in Japan House, with 5,000 visitors participating in the tea demonstrations. The Chanoyu exhibition then traveled on to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, ending at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
Other notable arts, crafts, and technology exhibitions included Japanese Lacquer at the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC; New York featured Japan: A Self-Portrait at International Center of Photography and MA, Space/Time in Japan, designed by architect Arata Isozaki for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum; Assembling a Kyoto Artisan’s House at the Children’s Museum of Boston; Japan Today: Innovative Technology, which included a working model of Japan Air Lines’ new high-speed train, at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry; and the opening of the Far Eastern Gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Chushinguara: The 47 Samurai, a kabuki play in English, was performed by Kabuki Hawaii in Los Angeles, Denver, St. Louis, New York, and Boston.The traveling production of The Little Elephant is Dead was a hit, with the Washington Post writing, “An alien culture swept down on the Kennedy Center last night, hijacked the Terrace Theater and performed a dazzling multi-media assault on drama as we know it.” Another New York highlight was Euripedes’ The Trojan Women, in a Japanese adaptation directed by Tadashi Suzuki and performed by the Waseda Little Theatre on its first American tour.
Sadako Ogata, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, gave the keynote address at the gala openings of Japan Today in both Washington and New York. Speaking to the need for deeper, more sophisticated understanding among nations in a world of increasingly complex relationships, she called for Japan and the United States “to cultivate a ‘new internationalism’—one that is infinitely more humanitarian and pluralistic in its willingness to recognize and appreciate the needs and aspirations of others.”
For American audiences, the exhibitions proved to be the most accessible point of entry to Japanese culture. Of Chanoyu, John Russell of The New York Times wrote: “The world of nuance and suggestion is revealed in an exhibition that opens today at the Japan Society…. It has to do with with a society in which an invitation to tea is just about the most important thing there is. The invitation is only the beginning, moreover. From the moment we get inside the door, we sense that our host has been determined to make this a one-of-a-kind encounter. That each meeting between human being occurs once only and must have about it something unique is fundamental to the Japanese view of tea…. There is undeniably something very impressive about a society that can formalize an everyday relationship to the point at which it can express an infinity of nuance. To keep that formalization in being for 500 years is also an achievement.” Russell’s sentiment is echoed in Newsweek‘s review of Japan Today: “To experience the mysterious taking of tea—or what the Japanese call chanoyu, the ancient tea ceremony, is to sense and taste the convictions at the heart of an extraordinary, lively culture…. It is precisely this ability to focus, to make every second, every inch, every stroke of the brush or pen count, which characterizes the Japanese achievement in all the arts—an achievement that is now being celebrated in seven major cities.”
Japan Today was made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), and The Japan Foundation. It was sponsored and organized by Japan Society, Meridian House International, and Smithsonian Resident Associate Program.
