Events

First in a trilogy of 16mm films made by documentary filmmaker Chiaki Nagano and Kazuo Ohno, released in black and white in 1969, and running at 65min. ‘Mr O’ refers to Kazuo Ohno. The film is a compilation of footage shot over a period of about a year in and around Kazuo’s home in Yokohama, the boiler room of Soshin Girl's School where he was working at the time, the uninhabited island of Sarushima in Tokyo Bay and Hōshōji Temple in Yokohama. Nagano was in charge of both directing and shooting the film, and mentioned once in an interview “with the camera, I was a partner to the dance. I responded to Kazuo as though I too were dancing”.
Kazuo Ohno performed in many of Hijikata's works in the 1960s, but after a guest appearance in Tomiko Takai's performance of ‘Mandara Yashiki’ in 1968, he stopped performing onstage and devoted himself to film production with Chiaki Nagano, who had also been involved in ‘Mandala Yashiki’ as the stage manager. A hundred copies of a limited edition booklet was released together with the film titled ‘A Chiaki Nagano Exhibition Portraying Kazuo Ohno’. A work of art in its own right, the booklet included words from Tatsumi Hijikata, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa and Natsuyuki Nakanishi among others.