Takashi’s Seasons

“Takashi’s Seasons” is a sequential live shadow puppet / video performance in which various scenes interpreting the four seasons are performed by a modern Utsushi-e artist. In the spring children are seen walking back to school with their school bags (the academic year begins in April in Japan). The proud performance of cicadas can be heard on a hot summer evening. Dragonflies smoothly glide in the cool air of a fall afternoon. On New Year’s Eve the chimes of temple bells are heard in the freezing winter night.

Collaboration with Togo Kida and Yoshimasa Niwa

Over the past century, it has become ordinary to experience motion pictures on large screens in movie theaters or as video projections. These modern projection instruments developed from what was called the “Magic Lantern,” invented in Europe during the second half of the 17th century. While the Magic Lantern was invented in the West, it influenced the emergence of a new type of entertainment in 18th century Japan known as “Utsushi-e.” Utsushi-e was an original hybrid of the ancient Asian shadow play and the Western Magic Lantern show. It can be considered a close ancestor of movies, preceding them by a mere century. In Utsushi-e, instead of merely projecting series of pre-fabricated images on a screen, artists created ‘motion pictures’ via a mixture of live art, light manipulation, narration and painted images. Artists built upon audience response; an interaction developed between the two.

“Takashi’s Seasons” is a sequential live shadow puppet / video performance in which various scenes interpreting the four seasons are performed by a modern Utsushi-e artist. In the spring children are seen walking back to school with their school bags (the academic year begins in April in Japan). The proud performance of cicadas can be heard on a hot summer evening. Dragonflies smoothly glide in the cool air of a fall afternoon. On New Year’s Eve the chimes of temple bells are heard in the freezing winter night.

This work does not intend to offer a common point of reflection for all to understand and cherish. Rather, the piece intends to evoke personal memories that are strongly tied to the four seasons, interpreted through a Japanese cultural perspective. Through the presented vignettes, this piece vividly brings back those personal memories, presenting them as a unified experience.

Selected Exhibitoins and Honors