Seventy-two years ago this week, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan killing more than 220,000 people, some dying instantly, their bodies evaporating on the spot, and others dying later from burns, radiation sickness, and cancer. It was a horrific and hellish scene that merged the lands of the living and the dead.
The first bomb, called Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:16 am on August 6, early enough in the morning to catch people just waking up and going about their morning routines. The second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped at 11:02 am on August 9. The bombs obliterated the cities and everyone’s lives within them, then and for future generations.
In announcing the bombing of Hiroshima to the U.S. people on August 6, President Harry S. Truman warned Japan to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” A statement that sounds eerily similar to President Trump’s response to North Korea’s threats on Tuesday that “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen…”
Bringing the past into the present, updating the narrative around the atomic bombings, and creating a conversation around the legacy, responsibility, and dangers of nuclear power is as important and relevant today as it was 72 years ago.
Tonight visual artist Yukiyo Kawano, who is a third-generation hibakusha, or nuclear bomb survivor, who grew up in Hiroshima decades after the bombing, and Butoh dancer Meshi Chavez will be asking these questions in their performance Suspended Moment, along with collaborators Allison Cobb, Lisa DeGrace, and Stephen Miller. (Butoh is a contemporary dance form born from Japan as a reaction to the bombings.) The performance will follow an event to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Japanese American Historical Plaza from 6 to 7 pm. Their performance will take place at University of Oregon’s Light Court Commons at 70 NW Couch Street at 7pm.
The work revolves around Kawano’s sculpture—two hanging replicas of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which she fabricated from her grandmother’s kimonos and stitched together with strands of her own hair.
