FILMS BY ABOUT AND WITH YURI

FILMS BY ABOUT AND WITH YURI SAT Feb. 11, 2023 in Tokyo

Five films, all featuring bilingual/bicultural poet/storyteller YURI KAGEYAMA, were shown at a tiny Tokyo club. Among the works are two directed by YOSHIAKI TAGO: A performance by American-based actors and musicians in San Francisco, and a documentation of Kageyama’s reading in Japan. Stop motion artist HAYATTO has painstakingly created animation of Kageyama’s short story. SAT Feb. 11, 2023, from 2 p.m. ShimoKitazawaTei https://shimokitazawatei.com/ FREE ADMISSION

詩人カゲヤマユウリが関わった5作品が東京で上映された。映画、テレビドラマなど数多くてがける多胡由章監督のニュースフロムフクシマとトーキング太鼓の他、国内海外活躍のストップモーションアーティストHAYATTO のアニメなどが下北沢亭 https://shimokitazawatei.com/

2月11日(土) 午後2時 入場無料。

Photo by On Lim Wong

ARTIST BIOS プロフィ―ル

YOSHIAKI TAGO directed “Sabai Sabai,” “Women at the Cash Register,” “Worst Contact,” as well as many Japanese TV drama shows, including “Atomu No Ko.” He won an award at the Yasujiro Ozu Memorial Film Festival. A graduate of the prestigious Japan Institute of the Moving Image, founded by Shohei Imamura, Tago has worked with Nobuhiko Obayashi, Takashi Miike, Takashi Murakami and Macoto Tezuka.

多胡由章監督は映画「サバイサバイ」「夜の底で魚になる」「レジを打つ女」「ワーストコンタクト」 他「アトムの童などテレビ番組も数多く手掛ける。小津安二郎記念蓼科高原映画祭受賞。日本映画大学卒。大林宣彦、三池崇史、村上隆、手塚眞とコラボ

HAYATTO specializes in stop motion film, in which the figures he makes by hand are moved, with a minimum of eight frames needed per second. His credits include “Box Cats,” as well as advertising for T-fal and Mitsui Sumitomo.

HAYATTO が特化するストップモーションは手造りのフィギャーやパーツをすこしづつ動かし少なくとも一秒8フレームで表現する愛あふれる作品。ショート「ハコネコ」やT-falや三井住友の広告で活躍。

YURI KAGEYAMA is a poet, writer, journalist and filmmaker born in Japan and raised in Maryland and Alabama. Her books include THE NEW AND SELECTED YURI (Ishmael Reed Publishing Co.). Her works are in KONCH, Bigotry on Broadway (Baraka Books), Life and Legends, Tokyo Poetry Journal and many other literary anthologies and magazines.

カゲヤマユウリ(影山優理)は日本生まれアメリカ育ちの詩人、ものかき、ジャーナリスト、ビデオ作家。

著書にはTHE NEW AND SELECTED YURI (Ishmael Reed Publishing Co.) など数多くの文芸雑誌や文集に掲載。      

                          ^______________________<

FREE ADMISSION Free Drink And Come/Leave As You Wish.

入場無料      出入り自由    無料ドリンク付き

下北沢亭 https://shimokitazawatei.com/

東京都世田谷区代沢5−29−9 2F  

5-29-2 Daizawa Setagawa-ku Tokyo

SAT Feb. 11, 2023  2 p.m.  ~  5 p.m.

2023年2月11日(土)午後2時 ~ 5時   

上映順と時間 Works in order of screening and duration:

I WILL BLEED, STORY OF MIU by Yuri Kageyama 2 min, 6 min

THE VERY SPECIAL DAY by HAYATTO 12 min

NEWS FROM FUKUSHIMA by Yoshiaki Tago 1 hour 15 min

Q&A with the artists 作者達との談話 20 min

TALKING TAIKO by Yoshiaki Tago 44 min

Photos by On Lim Wong
Kouzan Kikuchi a musician in the films at the screening. Photo by On Lim Wong
All photos by On Lim Wong
With Munenori Tamagawa, a visual artist and collaborator. Photo by On Lim Wong.

My songwriting _ “Oh My Buddha” and “I Will Bleed”

Two of my songs in this new album

my songwriting

“Oh My Buddha” and “I Will Bleed,” two songs I co-wrote with Hiroshi Tokieda and Tea, are part of this great album that just came out (October 2017).
“Oh My Buddha” (audio of an earlier reading in the link) is an Asian take on what we often say: “Oh My God,” something that Toshinori Kondo pointed out some time back as what we should be saying as Asians.
And so I imagined what it would have been like to have been married to a great man like Buddha.
It might have not been as wonderful as it might seem.
Tea and I were talking about how fun it would be to write a pop song that was inspired by an Indian theme.
And so this is what we did.
I even rap or read my poem in the recording _ woooh la la !!

OH MY BUDDHA
_ a song about faith, love and other things
By Yuri Kageyama

REPEATING THEME:
My name is Yasodhara
Wife of Buddha
Mother of Rahula
I ride a white elephant
I am Siddharta’s woman

VERSE 1
You took off to find Nirvana
Became a hero for the poor
You just took off one sunny day
And found enlightenment
While I’m stuck in the kitchen
Barefoot and pregnant, alone

(Repeat theme)

VERSE 2
You’ve started a religion
See statues in your likeness
Of gold and bronze and wood
Sitting prim on that lotus
While I’m having your babies
Feeding them, aborting them, alone

(Repeat theme)

VERSE 3
You remember I cooked you breakfast?
So you could go and contemplate
Sitting 49 days under the Bodhi tree
To discover, sacrifice, meditate?
While I’m crying in my misery
Breathing my prayers, alone

(Repeat theme)

REFRAIN
You’re a superstar
I’m a nobody
You live in history
I die unknown
When I awoke
There was no sign of you
When I awoke
There was no sign of you
My universe went up in smoke
My universe went up in smoke
Oh, my Buddha
Oh, my Buddha

I am planning a music video, and I have asked Toshinori “Toshichael” Tani to come up with choreography.
He will dance in the video, which I will film.

“I Will Bleed,” to me, evokes a lot of things _ abortion, miscarriage, birth, heartbeat, love, death.
Love is such a powerful force it is both horrible and awful.
My poem is about that horror, inspired by the double suicides of Chikamatsu, which highlight how the puppets, in death, are able to transcend how miserable, human and lowly they were before that moment of death.
That beauty to me is about the kind of love that crosses boundaries, overcoming racism and other small, discriminatory, confining preconceptions.
It speaks of the potential of our human condition.
I wrote the poem for Hiroshi and Tea.
But it is a poem for all lovers, and the hope love will overcome hate around the world, through the purification of our bleeding.

THE MANY LIVES OF YURI KAGEYAMA _ THE POET IN ME AND THE JOURNALIST IN ME

I get such a nice write-up by Tim Hornyak in No. 1 Shimbun, the publication of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, I can’t believe it is really about me.
It’s called The Many Lives of Yuri Kageyama.
And it brings together the sides of me I usually like to keep separate _ the poet in me and the journalist in me.

“The prose is unvarnished, unflinchingly personal and adroit in quickly juggling themes of child abuse, racism and sexuality while maintaining a narrative flow,” he writes.

“Kageyama’s poems have addressed stereotypes about race and gender roles. They’re made even more powerful when Kageyama recites them with collaborators such as Ghanaian percussionist Winchester Nii Tete on African drums and Keiji Kubo on didgeridoo. Against the backdrop of a traditional Noh stage, it’s a heady, globalized mix of words and music.”

Thanks to Tim. Thanks to all the musicians who have helped my poetry. Thanks to the poets, the literary publishers, the songwriters, the photographers, the filmmakers. Thanks to all the people of Fukushima who have shared their stories with me. Thanks, above all, to all the honorable, creative and dedicated colleagues I have at The Associated Press.

I WILL BLEED a song about love that defies all _ a finalist in a UK songwriting contest

I co-wrote the poem/lyrics with Trupti for “I WILL BLEED,” a song about star-crossed lovers inspired by Chikamatsu‘s double-suicides written for Bunraku puppet theater, about how love, no matter how simple, mundane and pathetic, endures, even in death.
The melody was composed by Trupti and Hiroshi Tokieda, who also plays bass in this fine rendition at his father’s Tokyo recording studio (SoundCloud below).
The musical composition by the couple songwriting team was selected a finalist winner in the U.K. Songwriting Contest in December 2015.
I am blessed to be collaborating with and just to know these two young brilliant musicians. I have seen them get married, despite being of different nationalities and backgrounds, tied together so absolutely through their love for music, and their love for each other.
They met at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where my son Isaku Kageyama graduated recently, and performed together in different musical groups, with both Trupti and Hiroshi.
They are our future, and the future of the best in music.
The best in us. All of us.
What I want to say in this song is that I still believe in love.
I wrote the poem and worked on the song with Trupti, knowing all the while that Trupti would sing it, and that Hiroshi and Trupti would compose the music together.
The song debuted at my poetry reading and tribute to my poet mentor Ishmael Reed at SFJAZZ CENTER in June 2014 (YouTube clip below).
They are the idea for this song.
They are this song.
I created this song for them.

I WILL BLEED
V1
I won’t cry (a)
Coz it’s in love that I bleed (b)
A bridge of ribbon that carries me (b)
Across waves of war no one can see (b)
V2
I won’t run (a)
My blood will rush strong and drain (b)
All my pride, prejudice and pain (b)
Only our love will still remain (b)
C
I will bleed (a)
But I won’t flee,
Hell is what I desire (b)
I will bleed
But I won’t hide
Hell is what I desire
Such heavenly fire
V3
I won’t sleep (a)
Until this ocean turns to wine (b)
On a night when our stars align (b)
Lying cheek to cheek no longer confined (x)
V4
We will live (a)
You the east and me the sun (b)
Not afraid of different tongues (b)
Our blood joined will make us one (x)

My First Film

I’ve written, directed and edited my first film “I Will Bleed.”
I am still learning; I am now a student at the New York Film Academy.
But it is wonderful to learn visual storytelling _ another way to express my poetry.
I’m working on my second film.

“I Will Bleed,”
a film written and directed by Yuri Kageyama

Cast:
Woman: Raquel Prado
Man: Rodrigo Albuquerque

Camera by Rodrigo Albuquerque and Desiree Cantuaria

Music “I Will Bleed” based on poetry by Yuri Kageyama
Lyrics by Yuri Kageyama and Trupti Pandkar
Vocals by Trupti Pandkar
Music composed by Trupti Pandkar and Hiroshi Tokieda

Performed at the SFJAZZ CENTER in San Francisco June 2014,
by the Yuricane band
featuring Hirokazu Suyama on drums, Hiroshi Tokieda on bass, Hide Asada on guitar,
and featuring Trupti Pandkar on vocals.

A TOKYO FLOWER CHILDREN PRODUCTION
September 2014.
A New York Film Academy student music movie film.