On Air: Fukuoka City Information/2012.6.22(Fri)/11:00～

Do you know about the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize? It is an award established to honor efforts to preserve and/or further the culture in Asia. This year marks the 23^rd award, and the four winners of this year’s award have been chosen. They are figures active around the world and the type of people who you do not normally get the chance to see live, but will be making a special appearance in Fukuoka this September! They are…

The Grand Prize winner, Vandana Shiva, an environmental philosopher. Vandana Shiva is an opinion leader in the environmental field, and also a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’).

Greedy, profit driven global economic markets rule the world. Shiva came to stand with the ordinary citizens, and with women, in effort to face the contradictions born of such a world; to rekindle respect for life, the connection between man and nature, and to re-establish true peace and justice. The name for this grassroots movement is Earth Democracy. It just may be the novel approach of Earth Democracy that brings a breakthrough to the dead ends the world faces today. Shiva’s forum in September is your chance to elevate your knowledge about respecting man and Earth.

The second person, and winner of the Academic Prize, is a Thai historian named Charnvit Kasetsiri. Through study centered on Ayutthaya, a world heritage site, and study on Southeast Asia and Thailand, Kasetsiri has opened up a new consciousness on the state of modern affairs. At Thammasat University, Kasetsiri established a course in Southeast Asian Studies for the first time in Thailand. Kasetsiri’s research on not only Ayutthaya, but also regarding Southeast Asia in its entirety, has been most fruitful. At the September forum, Ayutthaya’s prosperity as an international trade market will be examined and those who attend can follow the discussion of Kasetsiri and panelists. Won’t you come and learn the history of Ayutthaya from a proper authority?

There will also be two awardees of the Arts & Culture Prize, the firm of whom is Kidlat Tahimik of the Philippines. As Asia’s independent film pioneer Tahimik has had a huge influence on world film. Highly appraised as the “Father of Independent Film”, Tahimik has won several awards at the Berlin International Film Festival. And, despite the lauded rank, Tahimik always pleases crowds with funny and surprising acts during intervals between screenings, such as coming out and dancing in fundoshi, (Japanese loincloth). Sound surprising? Come check it out this September! Who knows what you’ll see, but you are sure to find out the reason for the nickname, “Father of Independent Film”.

And finally, the other awardee of the Arts & Culture Prize is a dancer from Indonesia, Koes Murtiyah Paku Buwono. When someone mentions Indonesian dance, the beautiful dance style of Bali usually comes to mind, but traditional dance and music of the royal court, passed down for more than over 300 years, are to be found on the island of Java. Murtiyah, well known in her own right as a dancer, has brought the until-now-almost-unknown court dance and music of Java Island to countries overseas through performance and CD. At the public forum you can see the gorgeous, majestic court dance and hear the music performance of the gamelan, an instrument of the Bronze Age. Come lose yourself in the world of the classic courts and let your heartstrings sing with music!

These greats are people you just don’t see every day, and they are coming to Fukuoka in September! For information, visit the website at fukuoka-prize.org. Don’t miss it.