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Creating a new cultural art that connects Okinawa to the future

The Founding Principles of this Institution

Okinawa’s regional culture and traditions hold a unique place within the context of Japanese culture, and hold crucial content in the search for the sources of cultures and traditions, as well as in the understanding of the universal ways in which culture is generated. It must also be said that the questions of the continuation and creativity of this singular set of arts and culture, cultivated in the unique environment of Okinawa are an important challenge, both in terms of the overall state of Japanese culture and of the state of Okinawa Prefecture itself. The fostering of human resources to address these challenges serves an important purpose, as a bridge into the far future.

The basic spirit underlying the founding principles establishing the Prefectural University of Arts is the relentless pursuit of beauty, the distinctive beauty created in the Okinawan culture, and the universal beauty of humankind. To achieve this, the uniqueness of regional culture must be made clear, and the problems facing areas of traditional arts such as arts, crafts, music and performing arts must be addressed directly and in a practical fashion, revealing the special nature of each artistic endeavor. We believe that this will not only enrich the content of Japanese culture, but will also contribute to international artistic and cultural activities by practitioners of these arts.

We at the Prefectural University of Arts, located at the southernmost point of our country, will focus on the Pacific cultural area, with East Asia and Southeast Asia region as our axis, and aim to uncover the realities of the various arts and cultures and pursue our research into our connections to and uniqueness from these regional cultures and traditions, as well as investigate their expansion. It is our objective to create a unique research and educational institution focusing on the distinctive characteristics of the Pan-Asian cultural arts.