Rengapoi: Hyper-Arts Innovation Japan Style

Saturday, October 3, 2015 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Tutor Campus Center Ballroom
University of Southern California
3607 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089

Like Japanese linked verse Renga poets of old, four artists inspire and riff of one other in unexpected ways. 

Enka superstar Jero, video animator Yuriko Mizushiri, legendary illlustrator Katsuya Terada, and creative genius Matt Fargo share a single stage.

The USC Renga-poi event will showcase a diverse group of artists, including a including Jero, an African American superstar in the Japanese classical enka music world; Yoriko Mizushiri, one of Japan’s leading female animators and video artists; Katsuya Terada, manga (or Japanese-style comic book) artist, well-known for his “live drawing” performances and his illustrations for Nintendo and Playstation; and Matt Fargo, translator and author of numerous books on Japanese contemporary art and society and lead programmer at Tokyo-based design and technology company, Creative Lab PARTY.

Japanese linked verse, called renga, is a collaborative art form in which members of a group, each in turn, compose a poetic link. Every link riffs off what came immediately prior to it, but also moves things forward, creating a space for the next impromptu link by someone else. Participants and audience together look on as the links gradually come to form a chainlike poetic sequence - a rich and unexpected composite artistry that goes beyond what a solo artist can do. Our concept, renga-poi (literally “Renga-like” or “Renga-ish”) takes a cue from renga's collaborative spontaneity wherein during a single event, multiple artists work together in turn, taking inspiration from their predecessor while also inspiring the one who comes next.

More information
http://dornsife.usc.edu/events/site/192/917179/