Japanese Tea and Ritual Room—卯月Uzuki (April) is an imaginary Zen garden inside the performance space, JACK in Brooklyn.
It's a research-based interdisciplinary work expanding perspectives on Japanese tea culture, seeking new meanings in ritual, and finding common ground between Japanese traditional culture and contemporary New York life.
Photo by Rachel Keane
Japanese Tea and Ritual Room—卯月Uzuki (April) Performances: April 19 - April 20, 2024
Created by Maho Ogawa In Collaboration with Performers Carolyn Hall and Annie MingHao Wang
Sound by Tomoko Hojo
Supported by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
Cross Promotion by Japan Society
Japanese Tea and Ritual Room consists of interactive installations inspired by personal rituals, as described by survey participants. Live performance activations of the installations realize the cultural intersections of the concept of "nothingness" that Japanese tea ritual invokes. During each performance activation performers will evoke a zen garden as human statues, stretching our sense of time so that we may find presence in the stillness.
Performances are being presented in celebration of the release of Maho's article in Push/Pull which was published by Culture Push in March 2024. Interrogating her roots as a Japanese choreographer, Maho began researching the Japanese tea ritual for its formality, concept, and the social function as a community gathering.
In 2023, she conducted a survey about personal rituals of the local community in New York. Results and reflections from the survey, along with an overview of Japanese Tea Culture, and an interview with a Japanese Tea Master, Yoshitsugu Nagano, are presented in the article.
Performance Dates & Times:
Friday, April 19th* Installation open: 3pm - 8pm Activations begin at 4pm, 6:30pm, and 8pm
Saturday, April 20th* Installation open: 3pm - 7pm Activations begin at 4pm and 6pm
*Purchase a ticket to any activation and come experience the interactive installation before or after the performance.
Tickets:
$15 - $50 (sliding scale), available HERE
Past Development:
The first iteration of this work, The Japanese Gesture Archive - Tea Ceremony, was commissioned by Invisible Dog Art Center (October 2022.) Since then, the work has been developed through Emily Harvey Foundation (2022), Culture Push's Show and Don't Tell symposium (June 2023) + online magazine PUSH/PULL (March 2024), Target Margin Residency (Nov 2023), Movement Research at the Judson Church (December 11, 2023).
Japanese Tea and Ritual Room—卯月Uzuki (April) on April 19 and 20, 2024 at JACK has been awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and was developed through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Rehearsal week program (March 25-31, 2024) lmcc.net.