Robert Ingersoll, 1914-2010

Ingersoll (far left) during a meeting of Ford's National Security Council, 1974

It was with heavy hearts this week that we learned of the passing of The Honorable Robert Ingersoll.

In 1972 Mr. Ingersoll became the first businessman to be appointed Ambassador to Japan since World War II. As noted in The New York Times obituary:

The appointment came at a time of strained relations between Washington and Tokyo, primarily over economic issues. Mr. Ingersoll’s company had long had joint ventures and licensing arrangements with major Japanese companies.

With Japan’s economy booming, the primary source of tension was its $3.5 billion trade surplus with the United States. In 1972, after negotiations with Mr. Ingersoll, Japan agreed to import $750 million in American manufactured goods and another $390 million in agricultural products.

Mr. Ingersoll served as chairman of Japan Society from 1978 to 1985. He took the helm following John D. Rockefeller's sudden, tragic death and continued the Society's impressive expansion of the 70s into the 80s.

Under Mr. Ingersoll's watch, the Society implemented the massive multi-arts, coast-to-coast Japan Today series in 1979, established the Japan Society Film Program (under the direction of Peter Grilli), dramatically increased activity and visibility in policy and business programming as Japan became America's most important world partner, and celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1981.

In addition to his invaluable contributions to U.S.-Japan relations as a business leader and diplomat, Mr. Ingersoll is remembered for his lasting participation in Japan Society activities, including support of our 2007-08 centennial. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Satoshi Kon, 1963-2010

Japan Society remembers Satoshi Kon (originally at japansocietyfilm.tumblr.com):

We would like to pay our respects to visionary Japanese animation director Satoshi Kon, who passed away on the morning of August 24 from pancreatic cancer. On that occasion, we wish to celebrate the exceptional body of work he leaves to posterity: his four feature films, Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and Paprika (2006), which was screened as part of the KRAZY! exhibition at Japan Society last year, and the 13-episode television series "Paranoia Agent" (2004). His thought-provoking, innovative works were admired both inside and outside anime circles.

Satoshi Kon was 46 years old and was still working on a fifth film project (his first children’s feature) titled The Dream Machine, which he had described as “a road movie for robots”. The news of his death started off as a rumor on Twitter in the early hours of Wednesday morning when animation producer Yasuhiro Takeda (and founding member of Gainax) posted a cursory note on the micro-blogging website. First met with incredulity, the rumor spread like wildfire and was finally confirmed by Masao Maruyama, Kon’s producer and president of the Madhouse animation studio, which produced all the master’s works and apparently still plans to complete his last film.

Kon’s dark but dazzling creations were at the crossroads of fundamentally different literary and visual traditions, offering complex meta-narratives that covered a wide spectrum of socio-realistic subjects, and always transcending genre conventions and limitations.

From his directorial debut, Perfect Blue, a chilling thriller about a pop-star-turned-actress who gradually loses her grip on reality while under siege by a mysterious and murderous stalker, to Paprika, the dizzying tale of a dream detective (it premiered at the Venice Film Festival among films by prestigious directors like Johnnie To, Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-liang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his former mentor Katsuhiro Otomo), Kon had deservedly gained international recognition as an artist and will live on through his art.

His final message, posted by his widow on his website, concludes with the following words:

“With feelings of gratitude for all that is good in this world, I put down my pen.

Well, I’ll be leaving now.

Satoshi Kon"

Anime News Network has Kon's final correspondences. He was also memorialized today by The New York Times.

Kazuo Ohno: 1906-2010

Kazuo Ohno (l) and his son Yoshito perform at Japan Society in 1999. (c) William Irwin.

A shining light from Japan's "dance of darkness" took to the sky this week: Kazuo Ohno passed away at age 103 in Yokohama, Japan.

"It is extremely sad news for the dance community--not only in Japan and America but across all five continents," said Yoko Shioya, who oversees Japan Society's Performing Arts Program. "Although formally trained in Western modern dance, Kazuo Ohno, together with the late Tatsumi Hijikata, pioneered Butoh--Japan’s inimitable contribution to contemporary dance."

Butoh developed in the 50s after World War II as a radical alternative to traditional Japanese dance. It embodied human agony with rigid, extreme, and highly controlled movement. Early pieces were ritualistic, almost primeval in their execution. Ohno's work, however, captured an ethereal, timeless beauty amidst the despair.

Jennifer Dunning wrote in The Times' obituary: "Mr. Ohno’s solo performances, for which he was known, were irresistibly powerful and fraught with ambiguity. A humanist, he communicated the themes of the form through identifiable characters, most often flamboyantly female." Ohno was particularly adept at depicting "decaying women", who, amidst their ostentatious hats, skewed wigs, or faded robes, were always forces of nature.

What is especially remarkable about Ohno's contribution to dance is that it came when he was well over 50. He didn't make his U.S. debut until age 77 at La MaMa E.T.C. Japan Society had the privilege to present him in 1993, 1996, and the 1999 retrospective Requiem for the 20th Century [photo above], which was Ohno's final performance outside of Japan. In 2007, as part of Japan Society's 100th anniversary celebration, the Society presented a month-long butoh festival in honor of Ohno's 101st birthday, including performances by Ohno's son, Yoshito Ohno, who heads the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio.

Ohno danced well into his nineties. Even after he became confined to a wheelchair, he performed by any means he could, with his hands alone, or by crawling across the stage, "making use of the working parts of a body ravaged by illness and age," as Dunning notes, "perhaps the perfect metaphor for the dark art of Butoh."

Ohno continues to be an influence on a variety of international artist, as Antony Hegarty  recently told Sterogum of his collaboration with the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio.

YouTube has a great collection of video with Ohno, including snippets of several of Ohno's performances from an independent documentary, and lengthy excerpts from The Dead Sea and Mother.

For additional background, see obituaries from BBC and Associated Press.

UPDATE: After this post went up, The Guardian UK published Antony Hegarty's moving tribute to Ohno, and The Washington Post ran their obituary [free registration required for the latter].

N.O., S.J.