Opening reception for The Floating World: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Collection of the Chazen Museum of Art from 4:00-7:00 pm in Edna Carlsten Gallery, 2nd floor of NFAC

Lecture - "Printmakers in Edo"  at 6:30 pm in 270 NFAC - Michelsen Recital Hall

Drew Stevens, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Chazen Museum of Art

Drew Stevens has been the curator of prints at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 21 years. He holds degrees in English from Iowa State University, and in art history from the University of Kansas. In 1992, he was elected to the membership of North American Print Council, an international curators group, then to its board in 2000, and he became secretary of the group in 2004. He has delivered lectures on various aspects of printmaking across the country and has organized more than 69 exhibitions of prints, drawings and photographs. Stevens has a special interest in technical aspects of printmaking, particularly woodcut printmaking.  He assisted in the mounting of the Utagawa exhibition to be shown in the Edna Carlsten Gallery

Japanese Film Festival: Kwaidan (1965) Masaki Kobayashi at 7:00 pm in 221 NFAC

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan features four nightmarish tales adapted from traditional Japanese ghost stories.

Lecture - Admiring the Sunrise: Japanese Woodblock Prints as seen by 19th century Europeans at 6:30 pm in 285 NFAC

Dr. Larry Ball, Art Historian, Department of Art & Design, UW-Stevens Point

Larry F. Ball received his B.A. in Classics and archaeology from Oberlin College in 1978, and his Ph.D. in ancient Roman art from the University of Virginia in 1987. He has been a regular member of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and a Mellon fellow of the American Academy in Rome. He has taught art history at Radford University in Radford, Virginia, and at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and ancient history at the American University in Washington, DC. He has been at UWSP since 1991. His research field is Imperial Roman architecture, concentrating on Nero's Palace in Rome, the Domus Aurea, and in the civic architecture of the Forum at Pompeii. His teaching interests are anything and everything having to do with western art history and he is an enthusiastic recruiter and professor for UWSP International Programs.

Lecture -  The Path of The Onnagata:  Male to Female at 4:00 pm in NFAC Courtyard

David Furumoto, Associate Professor of Acting, Department of Theatre & Drama, UW-Madison

In this lecture/demonstration, David Furumoto will discuss the history of the onnagata in kabuki, demonstrate the make-up steps that an onnagata actor goes through in applying a basic character face, then demonstrate the stylization that is used to portray a female character effectively on the kabuki stage with movement and voice.

Furumoto was born and raised in Honolulu. Receiving both his B.A. and M.F.A. degrees in drama and theatre from the University of Hawaii, he specialized in the study of traditional Asian theatre, with emphasis on Japanese forms like Kabuki, Kyogen and Noh. He also had the opportunity to study with masters of the Beijing Opera and Kathakali.  He has worked as a professional actor and director with many regional theatre companies across the country such as the Mark Taper Forum, the Berkeley Rep, the Alliance Theatre Co., the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the Seattle Children’s Theatre Co., the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Co., and East West Players.

His play "Wondrous Tales of Old Japan," which was commissioned by the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Co., has enjoyed successful productions at many venues across the country. His current play, "Obake! Japanese Ghosts," was produced by the Honolulu Theatre for Youth in the fall of 2007. He also holds a professional certificate in Japanese classical dance from the Onoe School of Dance. He is a member of the Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. He was awarded a Crown Prince Akihito scholarship for study in Japan and has also been nominated for the L.A. Ovation Awards for performance and received best actor awards from the Backstage Garland Awards.

As an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Furumoto and has taught courses in Asian theatre, Kabuki acting techniques, acting, and mask work. He has directed several plays for the University Theatre among them were experimental kabuki-fusion pieces such as "The Trojan Women", "The Mikado" and "Macbeth." He has also directed many pieces for young audiences including "Wondrous Tales of Old Japan", "Bocon!" and "According to Coyote."

Interactive Workshop -  A Kabuki Primer-A,B,C's of Performing Kabuki at 10:00 am, 136 NFAC

David Furumoto, Associate Professor of Acting, Department of Theatre & Drama, UW-Madison

In this presentation David Furumoto will demonstrate and teach basic movements of some of the different genres of characters found in the kabuki theatre. This is an interactive workshop.

Japanese Film Festival: Double Suicide (1969) by Masahiro Shinoda at 7:00 pm in 221 NFAC

In this striking adaptation of a Bunraku puppet play (featuring the music of famed composer Toru Takemitsu), a paper merchant sacrifices family, fortune, and ultimately life for his erotic obsession with a prostitute.

Lecture - Appraising Desire in Ukiyo-e: Representations of Courtesans in Late 18th-century Japan at 6:30 pm in 221 NFAC

Dr. Julie Davis, Art Historian, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania

Julie Nelson Davis is an associate professor of modern East Asian art at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches a range courses, including Early Modern Japanese art and the City of Edo, Japanese Painting, the Arts of Japan, and Postwar Japanese cinema. Her research concerns the arts of the Tokugawa period (1615-1868), particularly Ukiyo-e, the "images of the floating world." Davis has authored a number of publications on Ukiyo-e, including the book, Utamaro and the Spectacle of Beauty, and essays on Kitagawa Utamaro and his contemporaries in The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints and on the publisher Tsutaya Jûzaburô for Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680 – 1860, as well as others. She also worked as an assistant professor of art and East Asian studies at Oberlin College and as a lecturer of Japanese art history at the University of Washington. She earned her B.A. in art history from Reed College, studied at Gakushûin University in Tokyo, and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Davis has also received numerous fellowships and grants, including the Monbusho Scholarship, the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellowship at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and several U.S. National Resource Center Faculty Research Grants from the University of Pennsylvania.

Japanese Film Festival: Ugetsu (1953) by Kenji Mizoguchi at 7:00 pm in 221 NFAC

 Derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, this haunting tale of love and loss—with its exquisite blending of the otherworldly and the real—is one of the most beautiful films ever made.

Lecture - The Race to Erase: Reflections on a 'Post-Racial' Society at 7:00 pm in 221 NFAC

Junichi Semitsu, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law

Junichi Semitsu is a professor at the University of San Diego where he teaches "Race and the Law," "Global Politics, Policy, and Law," and "Lawyering Skills." He previously taught "Asian Americans and the Law" at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and "Race and the Constitution" and a variety of poetry courses for that school’s African American Studies Department. He served as the director of June Jordan's Poetry for the People Program at UC Berkeley from 2001 – 2005.

Semitsu is a 1999 honors graduate of Stanford Law School, where he won awards for oral advocacy and legal brief writing. He was a senior editor of the Stanford Law Review and president of his law school class. Semitsu earned his undergraduate degree in economics with highest honors at UC Berkeley in 1996. He was selected to serve as the student speaker for both his undergraduate and law school commencement ceremonies.

Semitsu previously worked as a law clerk to the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and an attorney specializing in employment law and First Amendment law in San Francisco. He has published articles in the Stanford Law Review and his essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, NAACP Magazine, and the Toronto Star. He also became the first embedded blogger to tour with a band when he was hired to cover the Dixie Chicks for MSN from 2006–2008. Semitsu was voted the "Funniest Lawyer in San Diego" in 2008 and won the Asian Pacific Council’s "Most Inspirational Faculty Member of the Year" award for 2004 – 2005 at UC Berkeley.

Lecture - Persona Perspective: Prints by Yuji Hiratsuka at 6:30 pm in 221 NFAC

Yuji Hiratsuka, Professor of Fine Arts, Department of Art, Oregon State University

Yuji Hirasuka was born in Osaka, Japan in 1954. He graduated from Tokyo Gakugel University in 1978. He received an M.A. from New Mexico State University in 1987 and an M.F.A. from Indiana University in 1990.

His prints have been shown nationally and internationally in many exhibitions. He has more than 40 one-person shows and his work is included in major collections including the Tokyo Central Museum, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Library of Congress, the British Museum, and the Achenback Foundation of Graphic Arts in San Francisco.

He is currently a fine arts professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, where he teaches printmaking and drawing.

Closing reception for The Floating World: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Collection of the Chazen Museum of Art from 4:00-7:00 pm in Edna Carlsten Gallery, 2nd floor of NFAC