A Portland State professor has been awarded one of Japan's highest honors for his contributions to the introduction of Japanese culture in the U.S. and the promotion of mutual understanding between Japan and the U.S.
Professor of Japanese Larry Kominz received the prestigious Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon this week. Annually, about 15 non-Japanese people from around the world receive this particular medal.
Kominz joined PSU's faculty in 1983, teaching classes in Japanese language, literature and drama. A fledgling program when he arrived, the Consulate Office of Japan in Portland credited Kominz with playing a seminal role in building what has now become a renowned Japanese language program and helping found and develop PSU's Center for Japanese Studies into a vibrant hub of Japan-related academic, business and cultural programming.
A hallmark of Kominz's career is his dedication and love for teaching and performing Japanese traditional drama, so much so that he's incorporated it into PSU's Japanese studies curriculum to stage Japanese traditional performing arts every year — a global pandemic notwithstanding.
Kominz, who trained as a performer of Japanese classical theater under masters in Japan as part of his dissertation, said the opportunity was life-changing and he wanted to pay it forward.
"I enjoyed the process tremendously — the training and the performance — and it afforded me so many unexpected insights and opportunities for growth intellectually and personally that I felt really strongly about making this opportunity available to students at whichever university would hire me," he said. "That turned out to be Portland State."
In Kominz's first year at PSU in 1984, his class staged a small recital of kyōgen, a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. Since then, the performances have become more elaborate with theatrical costumes and live music. In recent years, the program began alternating between performances of kyōgen and kabuki, a traditional form of classical Japanese dance-drama. He said PSU can lay claim to being the only American university to stage a traditional Japanese production every year.
"It's a great way to learn about Japanese culture by embodying it," he said. "I love it that much and I feel every single year, our students deserve the opportunity, and every single year, the audience we've built up deserves something exciting and educational and fun to see at the end of the year."
This year's kabuki performance, "The Sardine Seller's Net of Love," is set for May 25-28 at PSU’s Lincoln Performance Hall. More information about the play and tickets is available here.