see Performances for past events

The Illinois-Japan Performing Arts Network (IJPAN) uses advances in new media technologies to bring together Japanese performers, scholars, and audiences from across the physical distances that have too often kept them apart.  Through enabling this global cultural exchange, IJPAN celebrates pre-modern, modern, and contemporary Japanese music, dance, and theater. 

In practice, IJPAN combines the University of Illinois’s emerging technology capabilities (led by Guy Garnett, eDream Institute and Cultural Computing Group) and the academic cultural expertise of faculty (led by David Goodman, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures) with the programming strengths of the Japan Society in New York (led by Yoko Shioya, Performing Arts Director).  The Network’s seed funding has been generously provided by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

IJPAN’s External Goals:                                                                     

1.        Participate in the expanding number of global performing arts networks worldwide.

2.        Disseminate interactive performing arts programming via the internet, television, and digital media to sites around the world.

IJPAN’s Internal (U Illinois-Directed) Goals:

1.        Build on the expertise of Illinois Japan studies faculty to develop interactive programs in premodern, modern, and contemporary Japanese music, dance, and theatre using digital new-media technologies. 

2.        Integrate performing arts exchanges and collaborations with Japan into the curricular and research programs of East Asian Studies, Music, Theatre, Computer Science, Art and Design, and other departments at the University of Illinois. 

3.        Institutionalize the Japanese performing arts and interactions with Japanese performing artists as an integral and ongoing part of research and teaching at the University of Illinois and other institutions in our worldwide network.

Call for Participation

IJPAN is actively seeking creative and technical collaborators to participate in, contribute to, and help support interactive, networked performances; workshops; and streamed internet broadcasts for 2010-2012.

Contacts

David Goodman and Guy Garnett / ijpanproject@illinois.edu

with A. Colin Raymond and Ben Smith