"Voices of Asian Modernities: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Asian Popular Music" Conference at Pitt, April 4 - 6.

From April 4 through April 6, the University of Pittsburgh will host the "Voices of Asian Modernities: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Asian Popular Music" Conference. A brief summary from the conference website:

This conference aims to demonstrate how female entertainers, positioned at the margins of different intersecting fields of activities, created something hitherto unknown: they were artistic pioneers of new music, new cinema, new forms of dance and theater, and new behavior and morals. They moved from the margins to the mainstream and in their wake Asian pop cultures now have followed. These female performers were not merely symbols of times that were rapidly changing. Nor were they merely the personification of global historical changes. They were active agents in the creation of local performance cultures, of the newly emerging mass culture, and the rise of a region-wide and globally oriented entertainment industry. 

This interdisciplinary conference will bring together a group of scholars from a range of fields including Music, Literature, History, Anthropology, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, Performance Studies, and Asian Studies to properly historicize the artistic sounds, lyrical texts, visual images, and social lives of female performers in Asian popular music of the 20th century.

Several items are of particular relevance to this blog, including

* The documentary Kim Loo Sisters: Portrait in Four-Part Harmony and discussion with the director on April 4
* Kookmin University's Hee-sook Kim of Kookmin University presenting "From Female Dance Divas to K-pop Girl Groups: Gender, Sexuality, and the Body in Popular Music of South Korea from the 1980s to the 2000s".
* "Female Passivity or Musical Democracy?: Making Music with Hatsune Miku" by Jennifer Milioto Matsue of Union College.
* The University of Toronto's Joshua D. Pilzer presenting "The 'Comfort Women' and the Voice of East Asian Modernity".
* "The Acoustic Ladies: Remediating 'Chinese' Femininity and (Inter)nationality in Early Talkies" by Yimin Wang of UC-Santa Cruz.

A complete conference program is available online, and the film and the presentations are free and open to the public.

Short Peace (ショート・ピース) at Hollywood Theater, May 3 and 4.

The 2013 Japanese animated anthology film, Short Peace (ショート・ピース), is coming to the Hollywood Theater in Dormont (map) in May, and tickets for the two showings, May 3 at 1:00 pm and May 4 at 7:00 pm, are now available online.

This omnibus film called Short Peace, which consists of 4 short animated films. One of the films from Short Peace was nominated for this year's Academy Awards. Short Peace is also from the creator of AKIRA, Katsuhiro Otomo. in Japanse language with English subtitles

That nominee, Possessions, was in Pittsburgh earlier in the year. The complete film will have a nationwide release from April 18.

The theater is located at 1449 Potomac Ave. in Dormont, and is accessible by Pittsburgh's subway/LRT at a block south of Potomac Station.

2014 Silk Screen Asian-American Film Festival schedule posted.

The 2014 Silk Screen Asian-American Film Festival schedule was posted today, with times and locations on the Silk Screen website. The annual festival runs from April 26 through May 4, with screenings at four local theaters. Here's a quick look at the movies and short films of relevance to this blog:






A Time in Quchi (暑假作业), Taiwan; Bunta, China; Cheong, South Korea; Confession of Murder (내가 살인범이다), South Korea; The Garden of Words (言の葉の庭), Japan; Hide and Seek (숨바꼭질), South Korea; Mourning Recipe (四十九日のレシピ), Japan; Norte, End of History (Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan); Philippines; Touch of the Light (逆光飛翔), Taiwan; Trap Street, China; Unforgiven (許されざる者), Japan; Why Don't You Play in Hell? (地獄でなぜ悪い), Japan.

Short Peace (ショート・ピース) coming in May.

Short Peace (ショート・ピース), a four-part anime anthology by four directors, is coming to Dormont's Hollywood Theater the first weekend of May, writes its Facebook page. The 2013 film will be released nationwide from April 18, according to the distributor's website.

The Hollywood Theater frequently shows newish Japanese animated films on or near their US release date, including in recent memory: the Madoka Magica series, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, and Tiger & Bunny: The Rising.

Night Market at Pitt, March 28.

The Night Market presented by the Chinese American Students Association is back at the University of Pittsburgh this Friday, March 28, at 10:00 pm in room 548 of the William Pitt Union (map). From the event's Facebook page:

Join us for an awesome night filled with fun games, activities/crafts, prizes, and FREE food! Get to room 548 of the William Pitt Union as quickly as you can - you especially do not want to miss out on FREE CHINESE FOOD and BUBBLE TEA from Rose Tea Cafe!!!

Also, come out this Friday night to pie the current president Timothy Lee or current Public Relations Chair Jacky Chen! It will be $1 to pie either of them and the money will go towards fundraising for the ASA & Global Ties Formal!!

Miracle in Cell No. 7 (7번방의 선물) at Pitt, March 26.

The comedic drama Miracle in Cell No. 7 (7번방의 선물) is the final of two films in 2014's Korean Film Festival held at the University of Pittsburgh, now in its 11th year. Wikipedia provides a brief synopsis:

Lee Yong-gu is a mentally challenged man with the intelligence of a 6-year-old, which is actually the age of his own daughter Ye-sung who is much smarter than her peers. The two of them lead a happy life while Yong-gu makes a living by working as a parking attendant at a local supermarket. But one day, when the police commissioner's young daughter dies in a strange accident, Yong-gu is the one who happens to find her. He is falsely accused and sentenced to death for abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a minor. Ye-sung is sent to a childcare institution and Yong-gu gets imprisoned and assigned to Cell No. 7, the harshest cell in a maximum security prison.

Also according to Wikipedia, Miracle in Cell No. 7 is the third-highest grossing film in Korean history, one spot ahead of Masquerade.

It will be shown at 4:00 pm in 4430 Posvar Hall (map), and is free and open to the public. The festival has been presented by the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures, the Asian Studies Center, and the East Asian Library.

"What Abenomics Means for the United States" lecture, March 27.

Seats are still available for a free lecture on March 27 downtown, "What Abenomics Means for the United States".

After a generation of stagnation, the Nikkei has rebounded, the yen has plummeted, and Japan's pernicious deflation seems to be ending. Is Asia's second largest economy finally addressing long-ignored problems? Or is this just competitive devaluation by a different name? Bill Adams gives his assessment of Japan's latest reform plans and their implications for American businesses and investors.

The lecture is by Bill Adams of The PNC Financial Services Group, and is part of the ongoing MEPPI Japan Lecture Series, presented by Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc. and the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania. It's from 5:30 to 7:00 pm at the Allegheny HYP Club (map), and includes light refreshments. Registration is required and can be completed on the JASP website.

Night Market at CMU, March 29.

Keelung Night Market, Taiwan by Shenghun Lin (Creative Commons).

Two Carnegie Mellon University student organizations, Awareness of Roots in Chinese Culture (ARCC) and Taiwanese Students Association (TSA), will present their annual Night Market on March 29. Says the event's Facebook page:

It will be a night full of awesome food and games (including karaoke!). Every year many of CMU's multicultural organizations come together in this celebration of food, snacks, and games from all over the world. The event is an homage to street "night markets" that are popular in Asia.

It starts at 10:00 pm and is held in Kirr Commons in the University Student Center (number 30 on the campus map).

At the Japanese Garden in Shadyside.

A few photos in the Japanese Healing Garden at Shadyside Hospital earlier this month. Reads a plaque at the entrance:

This garden is a gift from Dr. Kazuo Kodera in honor of nurses. It is a place for health care providers to think about our friends around the world and to reflect on the meaning of our work, which i to care for one another. It is a place to find new friendships, to find new hope, and to find peace.

We hope you enjoy your time here.

September 2005

Pittsburgh Taiko Spring Concert, March 23.

Pittsburgh Taiko will hold its Spring Concert on March 23 at 2:00 pm at the University of Pittsburgh's Bellefield Hall (map).

Pittsburgh Taiko performs wadaiko, a form of Japanese group drumming. We use Japanese drums and play regional arrangements from both Japan and the US, as well as original compositions!

Admission is once again free for university (Pitt, CMU, etc.) students! Bring all your friends! Invite all your friends! Tell everyone you know! Tell strangers!

For non-students there is a recommended donation of $5. This money goes to support us for future concerts, as well as for lectures and workshops to teach people about wadaiko.