Miya Masaoka and Ensemble in Performance

Known for her innovative approach that draws upon jazz, Western classical, electronic, and traditional Japanese music, Miya Masaoka creates new sounds and techniques for the koto. Her recordings include Compositions/Improvisations (with James Newton); Monk's Japanese Folk Song; and Duets: George Lewis and Miya Masaoka.

(Jujiro, a.k.a. Shadows of Yoshiwara). This Kinugasa masterpiece, together with the director's earlier A Page of Madness, testifies to the sophisticated experimentation of the Japanese silent film. The story is told largely in flashbacks in which past and present, real and imaginary are intertwined. Set in the eighteenth century in the Yoshiwara brothel district of Tokyo, the plot involves a young man and his self-sacrificing older sister, innocents betrayed by a cynical world. "One senses (in Crossways) an unusually refined response to film as a dramatic means of expression - Kinugasa moves his camera with an aptness and ease equalled only by the best American silent directors, continually pointing up details in the shabby apartments and garish streets, and tilting and panning in a way seemingly years ahead of its time....The real liberation of the camera from a recording to an interpretative instrument may have begun in the Japanese Twenties."