iPass: Japan! culture + hyperculture

Overview

Learn more about the arts and culture of Japan with this interactive passport (iPass) to the Kennedy Center festival JAPAN! culture + hyperculture. Students explore interviews, video, slideshows, and more to boost their knowledge and crack "the code" for a free download not to be missed!

Suggested Use

The Kennedy Center festival, JAPAN! culture + hyperculture, brings together more than 100 performances, workshops and student and family events during February 2008.  This interactive passport, or iPass, is designed to provide pre- and post-visit information and activities for students, classrooms and families. As the festival evolves, ARTSEDGE will capture youth-focused highlights and extensions for young people to learn from and enjoy in the classroom and at home.

Using the iPass:

The iPass is designed to allow easy, self-guided student exploration of some selected forms of Japanese art, each exemplified by artists from the JAPAN! Festival. Most of the art forms, and many of the artists and performances featured in the print piece, are extended online with learning activities, Web links, audio, video and image slideshows. Look for the "Learn More" section in each artist area for resources that may be available (and be sure to check back, as we will post materials as we get them throughout the Festival!)

One key feature of the site is the "Unlock the Code" area at the top of each section. This simple puzzle draws from content in each page, and can be used as a fun way to check for understanding. The "surprise" at the end is a custom Kennedy Center ROBO paper robot toy designed by Shin Tanaka just for ARTSEDGE. We suggest you complete the quiz and download the toy yourself before implementing this in the classroom; it may take considerable time, especially for younger students. (The toy assembly works best when printed on 11 x 14 paper.)

For Teachers Coming to the Kennedy Center: As one of our Cuesheet performance guides for young people, a printed iPass was distributed to schools attending performances at the Kennedy Center. [That print-ready iPass is available for download here.] Many of the "Learn More" resources can be used for both pre- and post-visit activities.

Suggested Resources

The Web is well-stocked with high-quality sites, lessons, and media resources for the K-12 classroom studying Japan; many are created or compiled by teachers involved in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program. (The Japanese consulate provides an excellent list of some of those resources.)

The list below follows the structure of both the print and online iPass: Japan:

About Japan
There are several comprehensive Web sites devoted to the arts and culture of Japan. Two of our favorites for teachers are AsiaSource and Kids Web Japan—each contain classroom-ready statistics, maps and other information to make teaching about Japan easy at any grade level.

Theater
There are four main types of Japanese theater seen today; visit this page for an student-toned overview of the different types of Japanese theater, developed for students in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Student events during the Kennedy Center’s JAPAN! Festival featured a Kyogen-style Comedy of Errors. For classes attending the performance, we recommend teachers make use of the superb materials from the Globe Theater’s Education [PDF] team, created when they hosted this same performance and workshop. Given the obvious importance of a Kyogen-style adaptation taking place in Shakespeare’s own Globe, this PDF also contains a fascinating “diary” of the production as it prepared for its debut.)

Dance and Performance Art
There is a wide range of traditional Japanese dance, from court and religious dances to those connected to theater, like Noh and Kabuki.  Modern dance – native styles like avant-garde Butoh as well as Western-influenced and folk-infused choreographies—are international reknown examples of hyper-culture. (For general understanding of Modern Dance for both parents and classroom teachers, we recommend a visit to one professor’s musings on how she introduces this topic for her students.)

As part of the Festival, several dance and performance artists (fusing movement and visual or other media) will present performances of interest to classrooms and young people on the Millennium Stage.

Music
Like many folk and traditional arts, Japanese dance and music are intertwined; for deeper study at the middle and high school level, this page on dance and music from San Francisco Unified School District will be of great assistance.

Music is perhaps the most obvious "hyperculture" in Japan—in addition to expanding popular Western forms of music, like techno and Hip Hop, Japanese musicians have taken traditional instruments and forms and fused them with modern stylings and technologies.

Manga and Anime
Hugely popular both in Japan and in America, Manga (and its animated-film hyper-extension, Anime) finds inspiration and source in the Japanese woodblock traditions of the 1800s. Manga influences on popular animation are numerous, so students may be familiar with the basic conventions already. The "Online Manga University" provides detailed introductions to the basics, and its format is ideal for use on a Smartboard or via projector in the classroom. (As this site also has a separate, lightly moderated forum for its "students," it is not recommended that students use this site for free-exploration.)

Installation Art
Installation Art incorporates almost any media to create an experience in a particular environment. Sculptural forms, performance, music and sound, light, computers, video and other media combine to transform a space. At the Kennedy Center, all the major open spaces—including the Café, the Grand Foyer and the outside plaza—were used for installations. These are covered extensively in our "Festival Unpacked" slideshow as well as in the Learn More section.

Technical Requirements

Some of the components of this multimedia resource are bandwidth-intensive, requiring a high-speed Internet connection. Users should be equipped with speakers (or headphones in a lab or classroom setting) and will need Flash Player 8 installed on their computers.