Featuring:
Makiko Ito (dance) & Michael Moore (reeds)
Petit Croissant: Yota Morimoto (electronics), Marie Guilleray (voice/electronics), Akane Takada (toy piano)
Jaap Blonk (voice) & dj sniff (turntable)
TOPO: Vincenzo Onnembo (visuals) & Yuko Uesu (harp)
Date: Monday, August 15
Venue: STEIM, Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Time: 20.30 hrs.
Charge: 5 euros
“Not No More Fukushima nor Stand Up Fukushima, but just Fukushima!, free of any adjectives. We want to start by looking at Fukushima in its current state, unvarnished by any words.” Project Fukushima! Executive Committee: Michiro Endo, Otomo Yoshihide, Ryoichi Wago
Fukushima, once a quiet rural area in North-East Japan is now world-infamous as the site of possibly the worst human-caused disasters in history. The radioactive pollution continues to this day to spread in our air, water, soil and food. This has forcibly removed around 97,000 people (and counting) from the area, displacing them from their homes to start new lives from scratch.
However, the displacement is not just geographical, but also political and psychological. Fukushima, as a region with it’s own history and culture, is blindly being ostracized from Japan’s economic activities and being kept off the radar from the general public. Project Fukushima! is an initiative to keep Fukushima alive and connected. This tragic event must be remembered for and used as a stepping point towards a better future.
We are organizing FUKUSHIMA! Amsterdam because we feel a connection to the people in Japan who have to improvise their way through an uncertain situation. Old structures are crumbling and people are forced to find new ways to survive. To a lesser degree, this is what we are currently witnessing in the Netherlands as well.
For this event, we have asked four Japanese artists living in the Netherlands to present new collaborative projects. Although every artist is participating on their own good will, this is not a charity event, but rather an attempt to find a new and sustainable way to organize concerts and performances.
FUKUSHIMA! events will happen simultaneously around the world on August 15. The underlying theme between the events and projects is “The future is in our hands.”
For more information and artist bios visit the FUKUSHIMA! Amsterdam event page on steim.org