S T E I M [ events ]

“Not No More Fukushima nor Stand Up Fukushima, but just Fukushima!, free of any adjectives. We want to start by looking at Fukushima in its current state, unvarnished by any words.” Project Fukushima! Executive Committee: Michiro Endo, Otomo Yoshihide, Ryoichi Wago

Fukushima, once a quiet rural area in North-East Japan is now world-infamous as the site of possibly the worst human-caused disasters in history. The radioactive pollution continues to this day to spread in our air, water, soil and food. This has forcibly removed around 97,000 people (and counting) from the area, displacing them from their homes to start new lives from scratch.

However, the displacement is not just geographical, but also political and psychological. Fukushima, as a region with it’s own history and culture, is blindly being ostracized from Japan’s economic activities and being kept off the radar from the general public. Project Fukushima! is an initiative to keep Fukushima alive and connected. This tragic event must be remembered for and used as a stepping point towards a better future.

We are organizing FUKUSHIMA! Amsterdam because we feel a connection to the people in Japan who have to improvise their way through an uncertain situation. Old structures are crumbling and people are forced to find new ways to survive. To a lesser degree, this is what we are currently witnessing in the Netherlands as well.

For this event, we have asked four Japanese artists living in the Netherlands to present new collaborative projects. Although every artist is participating on their own good will, this is not a charity event, but rather an attempt to find a new and sustainable way to organize concerts and performances.

As dancer Makiko Ito reflects on her own practice as “lessons on listening and feeling” we do think it is a good time to actively listen – not to the loudest voices that tell us what to do, but to all the quiet and diverse ones that will help us navigate through these dark times.

FUKUSHIMA! events will happen simultaneously around the world on August 15. The underlying theme between the events and projects is “The future is in our hands.”

Featuring:
Makiko Ito (dance) & Michael Moore (reeds)
Petit Croissant: Yota Morimoto (electronics), Marie Guilleray (voice/electronics), Akane Takada (toy piano)

Date: Monday, August 15
Venue: STEIM, Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Time: 20.30 hrs.
Charge: 5 euros

"A lesson of listening" by Makiko Ito and Michael Moore ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
We have been working since 2005, mainly in a Music-dance group improvisation setting. This is the first time to play as a "duet." How we can listen each to other?

Makiko Ito is a freelance dancer and choreographer, who has been performing and teaching in Japan, and abroad (Netherlands, France, England, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Thailand). Since Oct 2005 she is based in Amsterdam, working with Magpie Music Dance Company and various musicians and dancers. She is also project leader of Wonderland, an improvisation performance project for/with children.

Michael Moore was born in Arcata, California, where he played in clubs and attended school before moving to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory of Music.
There he worked with Joseph Allard, Jaki Byard, Joe Maneri, Gunther Schuller, George Russell and others. After spending two years in NYC he moved to Amsterdam, where he has lived since 1984. He currently works with Available Jelly, Jewels & Binoculars, Franky Douglas, Achim Kaufmann, Dave Douglas, Fred Hersch, Benoit Delbecq, Eric Boeren, Paul Berner and his own projects include the White Widow Quartet, the Monitor Trio w/ Cor Fuhler and Tristan Honsinger and the Michael Moore Quintet.
www.ramboyrecordings.com

Petit Croissant - Yota Morimoto, Marie Guilleray, Akane Takada ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The band is originally called Broodje consisting of 3 japanese musicians. This time, the vocalist is french, so we named Petit Croissant.

Yota Morimoto (electronics) is a Japanese composer born in São Paulo, Brazil, currently undertaking a doctorate research at the University of Birmingham, UK. His works explore unconventional approaches to generating and transmitting sound, implementing models of noise, turbulence and abstract machines. His works have been presented in festivals and conferences such as TodaysArt, Transmediale, ISEA and many others.
http://yota.tehis.net/

Marie Guilleray (vocal/electronics) is a vocal performer, improviser and composer currently based in The Hague, Netherlands. She performs mainly in the context of free improvisation, experimental and contemporary music. Her work focuses on vocal extended techniques, sound poetry, and the combination of voice and electronics. She is a member of several ensembles such as Royal Improvisers Orchestra, a duo with voice and electronics with Bjarni Gunnarsson, and collaborates on various others.
http://marieguilleray.com/

Akane Takada (toypiano) is a Japanese pianist, who graduated from The Royal Conservatory Den Haag and Rotterdam Conservatory. She developed her contemporary music repertoire while involved in the Ligeti Academy. In 2010, she played the triple concerto of Beethoven with Codarts string orchestra conducted by Arie van Beek in De Doelen. Both as a soloist and as a member of ensembles, she plays in international music festivals and master classes. Besides the piano, she also plays the Koto and the Javanese Gamelan.
http://akane.tehis.net/

Jaap Blonk + dj sniff + Raoul van der Weide ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A first meeting as a trio between sound poet / voice extraordinaire Jaap Blonk, turntablist dj sniff and versatile bassist Raoul van der Weide. Over the years, the 3 musicians have each established an unique instrumental practice and come together for this occasion to explore new dialogues

Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. In the 1970s after playing the saxophone and composing music, he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds. From around the year 2000 he started to work with electronics. He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry.
http://www.jaapblonk.com/

dj sniff (Takuro Mizuta Lippit) plays the playback through scratching, cutting and stuttering various records that reflect his influences from Free Improvisation to Hip Hop. He also likes Frank Ocean.
http://www.djsniff.com/

Raoul van der Weide (born 1949 in Fontenailles, France) studied classical bass with John Clayton, Norma Brooks and Guus Janssen, but also developed a personal style in improvisation inspired by the views of diverse musicians such as Paul Termos, Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg, Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Lacy, Ornette Coleman, Derek Bailey, Charles Mingus and Munir Bashir. As an improviser, his creative focus on the development of an open and personal aesthetic in the broadest sense. The constant deepening of the "musical fingerprint" - a personal sound, intonation and expressiveness, is considered most crucial in his practice.

Raoul van der Weide (born 1949 in Fontenailles, France) studied classical bass with John Clayton, Norma Brooks and Guus Janssen, but also developed a personal style in improvisation inspired by the views of diverse musicians such as Paul Termos, Guus Janssen, Misha Mengelberg, Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Lacy, Ornette Coleman, Derek Bailey, Charles Mingus and Munir Bashir. As an improviser, his creative focus on the development of an open and personal aesthetic in the broadest sense. The constant deepening of the "musical fingerprint" - a personal sound, intonation and expressiveness, is considered most crucial in his practice.

TOPO: Vincenzo Onnembo & Yuko Uesu //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
TOPO is a synthetic audio-visual band founded in 2010.

TOPO was founded in 2010 by Vincenzo Onnembo (IT) and Yuko Uesu (JP), as a synthetic audio-vidual band. Vincenzo is a graphic designer/ film maker, innovating on the existing VJ flair, with digital and analogue lens-based tools. Yuko is a harpist with a movie camera, and has performed as an improvisor / experimental musician in Tokyo, Beijing, and Rotterdam since 2005. Whether in Chamber music, improvisatory, experimental or post-electronica pop, her work explores the faculty of perception through various creative processes.