The book stores have his works up front on the counter with Oslo celebrating his vacation in Norway by arranging a Murakami Festival on 20-23 August. The 720 tickets for his stage interview were sold out in twelve minutes to enthusiastic Norwegian fans, who afterwards lined up for his signature in his best-selling books that now have pride of place in their bookshelves.
Norwegians are very fond of Murakami. His books have sparked our wider interest in contemporary Japanese society and culture.
Culture exchange and people-to-people contact are so important for strengthening relations between countries and for promoting international understanding. Culture exchange builds bridges and enriches us. It makes us more aware of universal ideas and aspirations that we share. The media of expression are many: literature and theatre, music and dance, the visual arts.
We are happy to see how Japanese people are interested in, and appreciate, both traditional as well as contemporary Norwegian culture. Culture and public diplomacy are assuming greater and greater importance as an integral part of the overall work of our Embassy in Tokyo, strengthening with synergy effects also other fields of Embassy endeavour.
Our great playwright and dramatist Henrik Ibsen continues to attract Japanese audiences. His play “Hedda Gabler” will be staged in Tokyo in September. “The International Ibsen Festival 2010 Tokyo” will follow in November. It will be the first Ibsen festival in Japan, in which theatres from four different countries will participate. Not only the National Theatre of Norway, but also theatre ensembles from Germany, Viet Nam and Japan will perform modern interpretations of Ibsen’s ”An Enemy of the People”, “A Doll’s House”, “The Wild Duck” and “When We Dead Awaken”. This is the first time since 1971 that the National Theatre of Norway, our foremost performer of Ibsen’s plays, is staging Ibsen in Japan.
The universal values of Ibsen’s works also for contemporary society are shown by the issues he put on the agenda more than a century ago. Freedom of expression, environmental protection, gender equality, human dignity, corruption and misuse of power – these are themes that top societal agendas around the world even today. The Ibsen Festival Committee has already decided to arrange the next international Ibsen festival three years from now.
Our internationally celebrated artist Edvard Munch is well-known and appreciated here in Japan as well. Every year, the Idemitsu Museum of Arts in Tokyo displays three Munch paintings on loan from the Munch Museum in Oslo. The collaboration was initiated more than twenty years ago, when Idemitsu made a generous financial donation to the Munch Museum. This summer, the agreement was extended for another five years.
The Norway-Japan contemporary textile art exhibition “Cultex” will tour Japan from December this year. It features six major textile artists from Norway and Japan, who have worked on three transnational partnerships over a period of twelve months, exchanging ideas, techniques, and also cultural influences in each other’s studios. The result is an exhibition of new works that reflect the individual and collaborative experience of this group of artists during this period.
There are many more events on our cultural palette, not least in the field of music where prominent Norwegian musicians will be participating in forthcoming events such as the Tokyo Jazz Festival and “Folkelarm” in Japan.
Let me use this opportunity to thank Counsellor Wenche Prebensen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo, who has been in charge of the Embassy’s Cultural Affairs Section on a temporary basis for almost half a year, substituting for the Embassy’s Counsellor for Cultural Affairs Kristin Johnsen who is returning from maternity leave in September.
With the continued good and dedicated efforts of Kristin Johnsen, Akemi Date, Ami Semba and Yoko Nakatsukasa spearheading the Embassy’s cultural activities, we can in the months ahead look forward to many interesting manifestations of increasing cultural exchange between Norway and Japan that will further stimulate the relations our two countries.
Arne Walther