Events Feature Japanese Theme

HOLLAND - Japanese culture is being celebrated at Hope College through multiple events that open later this month, including a dinner, a dance concert and an exhibition.

The activities are a Japanese dinner on Thursday, Oct. 28; a dance concert that opens on Thursday, Oct. 28, and continues for five nights through Friday, Nov. 5; and an exhibition that opens on Friday, Oct. 29, and continues through Wednesday, Nov. 24.

The Japanese dinner will be presented in the Phelps and Cook dining halls on Thursday, Oct. 28, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The menu will include eggplant miso soup; soba noodle salad; sushi; toriwasa - sliced chicken with wasabi sauce and hijiki nori (shredded seaweed); yakisoba - yakitori-style beef with vegetables over udon noodles; tempura shrimp with dipping sauces; roasted yams with pineapple butter; horensho hitachi - braised spinach with dashi and sesame seeds; sausage fried rice; vegetable fried rice; Japanese sweet red bean gelato; and sweet bread with orange glaze.

Admission to the dinner, payable at the door, will be $5 for guests, and free to all students using the college's meal plan.

Aerial Dance Theater will premiere a new work titled "Kawabata Suite" during the company's fall concerts on Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 28-30, and Thursday-Friday, Nov. 4-5, at 8 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre. There will also be an informal question and answer session following each performance for audience members to participate in discussion with the company members."Kawabata Suite," by guest choreographer William Charles Crowley, presents dance images drawn from the novel "Palm of the Hand Stories" by the Nobel Prize winning author Yasunari Kawabata. Five of the novel's stories have been translated into motion to depict Kawabata's poetic comments on daily life in Japan in the 1920s.

"Kawabata Suite" was funded by a grant from the Hope College Patrons for the Arts. The work will present two Japanese exchange students, Sayaka Nakatsuji and Kayoko Aoki, on stage in collaboration with both new and returning company dancers.

Tickets for the concerts, which will also feature other work, will be available at the door, and cost $7 for regular admission and $5 for senior citizens and students. Admission is free for children under 12.

The exhibition "New Vessels: Recent Additions from the Maurice Kawashima Collection of Japanese Ceramics" will open in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center on Friday, Oct. 29, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and will continue through Wednesday, Nov. 24.

Kawashima, who will attend the opening, is a fashion designer, professor and art collector. He made his first donation of Japanese ceramics to Hope in 1989, and the college celebrated the works with two previous exhibitions, in 1993 and 2002. Hope presented him with an honorary degree, the Doctor of Letters, on Friday, April 23, 1999.

The new exhibition sets on display a new gift of Japanese ceramics, and celebrates the continuation of the cultural partnership between Kawashima and Hope.

The exhibition's curator, Shoji Satake, is currently a visiting professor of ceramics in Hope's department of art. He has bachelor degrees from the College of William and Mary and an MFA from Indiana University. He has served as an associate instructor in ceramics and chief curator at Indiana University; his work has been featured in exhibitions in Canada, China, Japan and Italy as well as Alaska, Indiana and Virginia.

"I believe Hope College has one of the finest collections of contemporary Japanese ceramics in the nation," Satake said. "The Kawashima Collection represents the works of the most respected ceramics artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is truly an extraordinary collection."

The gallery is open on Sundays and Mondays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.; and Thursdays from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Admission is free.

Cook Hall is located on 10th Street between College and Columbia Avenues. The De Pree Art Center is located on Columbia Avenue at 12th Street. The Knickerbocker Theatre is located in downtown Holland at 86 E. 8th St. Phelps Hall is located on Columbia Avenue at 10th Street.

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