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œActe Kobeœ

The Acte Kobe 99 in Marseille
This translated article was written for the "Kobe Kara" magazinne in April 29.
The Acte Kobe 99' was held at the Alhambra Theater in Marseille from January 14th to 16th 1999. Eight members of Acte Kobe-Japan (AKJ) including me participated to this event, too. It has been four years since the all night concert of Acte Kobe 3 was held at XEBEC HALL in January, 1996. It was wonderful to meet again those members of Acte Kobe-France (AKF), after such a long time, who participated Acte Kobe 3. We spent an exciting and tasty time there for about two weeks during our stay. We enjoyed parties almost every day.
This is the report of the activities of the international artist network and the movement, Acte Kobe, which was started after the Earthquake and will continue into the future.

@œMr. Barre Phillips came to Kobe after the Earthquake alone!! œ

We came to hear of Acte Kobe for the first time when Mr. Barre Phillips came to Kobe after the Earthquake. That was on March 30, 1995. Mr. Phillips is a renowned contrabass player who lives in the suburbs of Marseille city. Knowing of Mr. Phillips' coming to Kobe through our friend, Mr.Shimoda Nobuhisa (planning director of XEBEC), Miss Mori Nobuko (Xebec staff), Mr. Matsubara Nozomu ( saxophone player), I decided to go to the city office with him.
Mr. Phillips, a tall and not so young man, had arranged to visit an official of the International Relations Division to offer his idea.
"Musicians, Photographers, visual artists, film artists and contemporary artists in Marseille, one of Kobe's sister cities, have started a movement to support those artists in Kobe who had experienced some loss from the disaster. We would like to offer them somefit of financial support out of the profit from a charity event called Acte Kobe which is going to be organized this coming April in Marseille. I would like to know how and where to send this support money."
The officer told him.
"It is very kind offer though, it is not easy to accept for us, because we have never received such an offer that has been made to a specific group of the people. You can ask the Japan Red Cross which is the managing association for donations in general. If you are offering this only to the artists, I would like to advice you tchoose the group from this book and tell me the group one by one."
Then Mr. Phillips was handed the book called, The List of Cultural Groups in Kobe, which was written in Japanese. Of course he did not understand Japanese. Getting embarrassed, he asked us for advice as to which was the best way for his offering to proceed and then went back to France. This is how the Acte Kobe movement started.
After the Acte Kobe in Marseille, the same kind of movement was organized in Bern, Switzerland, in September. They also were to send us some money. Being the receptionists, by chance, of the contribution from the artists both in Marseille and Bern, we decided to offer their contribution to C.A.P. (The Conference on Art and Art Project), which was an artist group in Kansai area. They were going to hold an art exhibition and party titled CAPARTY vol.1. The amount of the contribution from Europe was not so much though, but their message of solidarity sent with the money was very impressive for us.

@œThe Acte Kobe happened in Kobe , too œ

One year after the Earthquake we held the Acte Kobe 3 at Xebec Hall in January, 1996. For this event we invited four members of Acte Kobe movement in Marseille and Bern who were the main people there. They were Mr. Barre Phillips, Mr. Alain Diot, Mr. Ferdinand Richard from Marseille and Mr. Hans Burgener from Bern. Among those artists who particpated in the all night concert, were Mr. Barre Phillips, who played Contrabass, Mr. Ferdinand Richard, who played Electric bass, and Mr. Hans Burgener, who played violin along with many other Musicians and dancers from all over Japan and the U.S.. The concert continued through the night till the next morning. While listening to the improvised music, Mr. Alain Diot made a large green and black painting. All of them expressed their solidarity to us artistically.

The visiting artists stayed singly at the residences of the Japanese staff. Mr. Alain Diot stayed at my house for ten days. A bearded man with the gentle eyes, Mr . Alain Diot spoke neither Japanese nor English. Since my wife and I did Not understand French, it was little frustrating for us to treat him properly at the beginning, but drinking every night helped us much. Although it was not enough, we could somehow manage to communicate with gesture and drawing. We used to conclude our conversation with " Sake, Tres bien! Kanpai". They were wonderful days.
Up until that time it was just a simple interaction between them and the artists, an expression of solidarity with those of us who had suffered from the disaster. But when meeting and playing with them, we realized that they were wonderful and attractive people, not only as the artists but as humans. They also might have felt the same feelings as us. That was why they asked us to continue these kind of activities in future. After meeting with them we agreed with each other to continue the relationship. This was the positive network which was created by the negative disaster. As a result AKF was founded in Marseille in February1997, and then AKJ in Kobe in June 1997, in order to continue the interchange of activities.
After foundation of both AKF and AKJ, we started the exchange project. One part of the plan is to exchange works that can be sent by post. The other is to exchange photographs. The idea of the photo-exchange project is to send each other photographs taken with a disposable camera, sending them before they have been developed. The subjects of the photograph are the events of our daily life both in France and Japan on the same date of January 17 and July 17 every year. When we saw the pictures sent from France for the first time, we came to know different way of life was. It was very exciting for us to know how their lives presented themselves through their pictures. Those pictures, and the works we sent each other, were shown at exhibitions both in France and Japan.

@œThe Days of "Work" of Acte Kobe 99œ

While we had been doing the activities written above, our desire to go and meet with AKF members became stronger. We then told Mr. Phillips of our desire through e-mail. Hearing this, he was also excited and said, " It is wonderful! We are going to arrange things immediately here in expectation of your arrival." This is how the Acte Kobe 99 came to the Alhambra theater in Marseille from January 14 to 16, 1999. We participated in it!
Eight members of AKJ participated in this event. Although we got support from Kobe Art Aid, we had to cover almost all ourexpenditures for traveling. We got the schedule from Mr. Phillips before our leaving. It was written on the schedule that "Chantier mobile de creation (the moving atelier of the creation)" was to start after the first group's arrival there on January 8. So we thought that it was the rehearsal for the actual performances at the theater. But it seemed the rehearsal did not happen.
The schedule was:

As the schedule shows, we moved from house to house and had parties almost every day except from 14th to 16th. There were temporary performance sessions though. They were not rehearsals for the theater session, but they must have been AKF's aim of "Chantier mobile de creation (the moving atelier of the creation)." I think that "the work" brought us closer together with each other day by day. Thus, the theater session and the exhibition could have a special and warm atmosphere. Of course, during "the work" a lot of wine was consumed.
The days were full of eat and drink till late at night, everyday. We were actually too busy To do other things.
The live sessions at the Alhambra theater were almost always improvisational music. One of the reason was that the most of AKF musicians usually do their musical activities this way. The other one is that our activities started as a way to solidarity, not the sharing of particular musical themes. Mixed with musicians of classic, contemporary, provisational, Indian music, and computer music as well as painters, dancers, sound artists and a picture-story performers, the stage sessions were performed till midnight everyday.
What we, the AKJ members, did those days was only the eating good food of the South of France, the drinking of good wine, chatting with the AKF members and enjoying performance sessions. Since we were so busy that we could not even go shopping, there was no chance to spend money there. So the tour to France was really enjoyable, fruitful and inexpensive for us.
This unusual exchange event was noticed by the local people and was covered by TV, radio and the papers. The deputy mayor of Marseille in charge of sister city relations, Mr. Bernard Leccia and the former French representative of the association of members of parliament in France and Japan, Mr. Yves Rousset-Rouard also came to see our activities. The Consul General of Japan, Mr. Yukiya Amano was also impressed with our event and he held a reception party for us one night.

@œActe Kobe 2000, then 2001œ

After coming back from France we had a general meeting in February. At the meeting we decided to organize an event similar to Acte Kobe 99 in the future and to invite AKF members to Kobe. It will be in the Summer of 2001, which will be the 40th year anniversary of the sister city relationship between Marseille and Kobe. As we started to think about our plan, the Japan Foundation informed us of their support for theAK movement in Marseille in 2000, which we had applied for earlier. It was exciting news for AKJ. We are not rich enough to go to France every year using our own money. When informed our contacts in France of this news, they told excitingly that all of the AKF members were very much looking forward to meeting us again, there in Marseille. So are we. We are looking forward to the kind of "the work" they will make for us in our next visit.

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