Koizumi is part chamber music, part theater, and part visual art. Koizumi explores the life and work of Lafcadio Hearn, a 19th-century folklorist and writer.
Being developed through a residency at the ArtLab, Koizumi is part chamber music, part theater, part visual art. Koizumi explores the life and work of Lafcadio Hearn, a 19th-century folklorist and writer. Obsessed with the morbid and outlandish, he awakened the magnetic pull of grotesque storytelling in his contributions to American journalism and in his interpretation of Japanese folk stories. Most notably, Hearn offered a literary perspective through the ghostly spirit world of Old Japan and gave a journalistic voice to marginalized societies around the globe. Hearn’s overlooked accomplishments deserve to be uncovered, and the vastness of his contributions will optimally manifest on a multisensory platform.
Koizumi features musician Jean Laurenz, Lafcadio Hearn’s Great-Great-Grand-Niece, and the multimedia visual and soundscape artists Masary Studios. Masary is a Boston-based team of artists that consists of Maria Finkelmeier, Sam Okerstron-Lang, and Ryan Edwards.
In Koizumi, the quartet explores Hearn’s life and artistic output, realizing his multidimensional contributions through a blended performance of digital light and sound. Using original composition and projection art, the team highlights how Hearn married cultural perspectives with literary astuteness, becoming a leader in social justice and cultural preservation.
These two works-in-progress showings are free and open to all, but tickets via Eventbrite are required.
This residency is supported in part by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
Read more in the Harvard Crimson: The ArtLab Hosts ‘Koizumi,’ an Art Experiment.
Photo: Aram Boghosian