Hi friends,
Here’s the information on Saturday’s Japan Festival in Porter Square.
Date & Time: It’s on November 13, Sat. I’ll perform twice, from 1-1:45pm and from 3-3:45pm. In each time slot you’ll see a koto performance, me dancing to koto music, and me dancing to nagauta (type of song) and shamisen music. After that there will be a shamisen and guitar collaboration of Okinawan music. For those of you who made it to the Sunday performance I’ll be performing Tenaraiko (nagauta piece) again, and an additional newly choreographed piece to koto.
Around 5pm there will be taiko performance by the New England Odaiko.
Location: We’ll be performing inside the Porter Exchange Mall, in the foyer/hallway outside the Blue Fin Restaurant. As you can imagine, this is pretty informal, and that makes this performance a very non-traditional one. Traditionally traditional Japanese dance has been performed in theaters or in a private setting of a zashiki (restaurant that offers geisha entertainment). In Porter Exchange I don’t think there will even be chairs set up for the audience, so it will have a street performance type of atmosphere where some may stop by to watch while others may walk past it. It should be interesting to perform in this type of setting. The directions to Blue Fin can be found here: http://boston.citysearch.com/profile/4749135/cambridge_ma/bluefin_japanese_restaurant.html#profileTab-maps
It’s free and open to the public. This is my last performance for the year (and I have no idea when the next one might be) so I hope you can make it! Nihonbuyo, koto, and shamisen performances are pretty rare in the Boston area, so I highly encourage you to check it out. I hope to see you all on Sat.
Cheers,
Michi