Vol. 59 Updated July 29, 2009  |
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A fictional city in one of the remote regions of the country is holding an arts festival in hopes of stimulating the local economy. With a proud career bureaucrat who has been handed the cushy position of chairman of the arts promotion foundation by the national government, city officials trying to get on her good side, professionals trying to please the people in power, artists who tend to be too idealistic, a female producer brought in from another city and local citizens being tossed around in the power play, the festival’s organizing committee is thrown into turmoil. Woven from light, airy conversation, the play manages to expose the fundamentals of the power games played out in a provincial city and depict the human weakness that makes people bend in the face of group pressure. All this makes “Katari no Isu” a representative work of contemporary Japanese society. |
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Founded in 1971 by the New York State Council on the Arts with a mission to “empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives,” the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent foundation. Through its “Fiscal Sponsorship” program launched in 1976 and now one of the largest grant programs in the USA for artists and progressive organizations in the arts, as well as various other programs, NYFA provides grants totaling more than $6.6 million annually. The largest funders of the NYFA are the New York State Council on the Arts
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. |
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