I am pleased to announced the launch of a new non-profit society dedicated to traditional Japanese arts based in Vancouver, BC. 

Inspired by the era that witnessed the blossoming of numerous Zen-inspired arts —including ikebana flower arrangement, chanoyu tea ceremony, kōdō incense ceremony, Noh theatre, renga poetry, sumi-e ink painting, architectural and garden design — under the patronage of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa in the late 15th century, Dōjin Arts aims to bring together experts in a wide range of different fields of Japanese arts to highlight the points of connection and commonality among the various traditional arts, offering audience members and workshop participants a deeper understanding of the broader aesthetics, history, and cultural values that bring us together.
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Not to be missed! 
UBC Centre for Japanese Research is hosting a lecture by Rebecca Corbett on Thursday, March 19th, 3 pm.

Learn noh chant & dance from master actor Yamai Tsunao 

Master Komparu School noh actor Yamai Tsunao will be in Vancouver teaching a special workshop in noh chant (utai) and dance (shimai) from March 8-12. 

Participants will learn the basic stance and gestures of noh, and work on short selections of two plays. Limited to 24 participants. MORE INFO...

March 8-12, 6-9pm
SFU's Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (149 W. Hastings) - World Art Centre
$150 (plus GST)
To register call 604.607.5978 or email: [email protected]

There will be a free public showing 
on Thursday March 12 at 7pm - ALL ARE WELCOME!
 
Presented by: TomoeArts & SFU Woodwards Cultural Programs

My next chanoyu workshops at Nikkei Centre has been posted. Please contact Nikkei Centre directly to register. If you have questions about the content of the workshop, feel free to contact me through the contact page here: contact. 

The Sado Club at Nikkei Centre will be hosting a New Year's celebration on January 17, 2015.

4 sessions available: 
12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm 
Fee:$12, $10 (member) 
Tea and Sweets included
Children under 12: Free 
(must be accompanied by an adult)

No prior knowledge of tea ceremony or Japanese language is required.
Attire: No jeans, miniskirt. Please bring a pair of white socks.


Location: Nikkei Centre Tea Room 2F, 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby, BC

Registration is through the Nikkei Centre: 
604.777.7000 or [email protected] 

Space is limited, so sign up early!

The themes for this fall's chanoyu workshops at Nikkei Centre have been posted. Please contact Nikkei Centre directly to register. If you have questions about the content of the workshops, feel free to contact me through the contact page here: contact. 

Omotesenke Tea Ceremony Workshops in English

Registration: 604.777.7000 / [email protected] (Nikkei Centre)
Max. 12 students. Minimum 4 or class will be cancelled.
Ages: 15+
Attire: No jeans, miniskirt. Please bring a pair of white socks.

Workshops are conducted in English and will be broken down into lecture, demonstration, and hands-on participation components.
No prior knowledge of tea ceremony or Japanese language is required.

SEPTEMBER: Chaji – Structure of a formal tea gathering
Sunday, Sept 28, 1-4 pm
Fee: $28, $25 (Nikkei Centre Members)

A full formal tea gathering is a four-hour event that includes preparation of a charcoal fire, serving a multi-course meal, and enjoying two types of matcha. This type of gathering, called a chaji, embodies the ultimate form of hospitality toward one’s guests. This workshop will introduce the various components of the standard midday chaji gathering through slide and video lecture followed by tea and sweets served in the tatami room.

NOVEMBER: Chashitsu – What makes a tea room?
Sunday, Nov 23, 1-4 pm
Fee: $28, $25 (Nikkei Centre Members)

The practice of Chanoyu is conducted in rooms especially designed for serving tea. This workshop will discuss the features that distinguish a tea room from any other room in a traditional Japanese home, including aspects of the alcove, location of the entrances, and other architectural features. We will look at examples of famous traditional tea rooms and tea houses in Japan as well as some creative contemporary interpretations of the tea house as an architectural form. The slide and video lecture will be followed by tea and sweets served in the Nikkei Centre’s tatami room. 

Saturday, April 12 - 7pm
The Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts 
149 West Hastings Street


Tickets $29 & $19 
(students/seniors/group of 10+) available through Tickets Tonight online or at 604.684.2787

As part of the 125th Anniversary of the Consulate-General of Japan in Vancouver, the Consulate and TomoeArts, in cooperation with the Komparu School of Noh, will present a full performance of the Japanese noh drama Hagoromo (The Feathered Robe). Internationally acclaimed noh actor YAMAI Tsunao, who presented workshops and collaborative performances here in Vancouver in 2012 and 2013, will this time be leading a troupe of 11 performers and musicians from Japan to present a full-scale performance of Hagoromo in full-costume and with full musical accompaniment and chorus.

This one is not to be missed!

UKIYOE SPECTACULAR
at the West Vancouver Museum
January 9 - March 22, 2014
and Nikkei National Museum
January 11 - March 23, 2014

Thanks to the generosity of collector Inagaki Shin'ichi of Tokyo, this spring local Vancouver-area audiences are getting a rare opportunity to view a selection of humorous, playful, dramatic, and cryptic prints that challenge our preconceptions of Ukiyo-e as a genre.

The two venues combined present a total of more than 100 woodblock prints from the late Edo and Meiji periods, including more than thirty prints by the increasingly popular Utagawa Kuniyoshi. 

The exhibition also includes several prints by the world-famous Utagawa Hiroshige, but don't go expecting to see his lyrical landscape scenes of stations along the Tōkaidō Road. Instead, his playful designs of hands and figures in poses that appear as something entirely different when reflected as shadows against shoji paper demonstrate a totally different level of connection he and other wildly popular artists of his time were able to make with the Edo public, who were their audience and avid consumers. 

Through a number of recent publications--Edo no asobi-e (Play pictures from Edo), Kuniyoshi no musha-e (Warrior prints by Kuniyoshi), Kuniyoshi no kyōga (Comical prints by Kuniyoshi) and others—Inagaki-san has been working to introduce contemporary audiences to the full range of pleasures such lesser-known Ukiyo-e prints of the mid- to late Edo and Meiji periods afforded to the people of their own times. 

The prints themselves are also in superb condition, the vibrant colours and sharp impressions allowing for an even greater sense of affinity with the experience of the prints' original audience. 

We are fortunate to have this collection here and I hope that the exhibition will reach a broad and diverse audience, being shared by these two intimate venues on opposite sides of the city.

Salon Series 2013/14: Elements of Kabuki Dance 
Sunday, November 10  at  3:00-4:30pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre - Board Room - 6F
677 Davie Street 

Starting this fall, TomoeArts will be hosting quarterly gatherings focused on themes, topics and issues connected to Japanese dance and performing arts. There will be presentations, discussions and demonstrations, featuring members of the TomoeArts community and special guests. 

November 10 will be the first instalment of the series and will feature TomoeArts' Artistic Director Colleen Lanki (Fujima Sayu), who will talk about the story of Yamanba, the Mountain Crone, a popular character in Japanese performing arts. We will have a chance to look at the character as presented in noh theatre, and also how she is depicted in kabuki and nihon buyoh. 

There will be refreshments and admission is by donation. 

We hope you will join us! 

Over the last couple of weeks I've been in contact with the organizers of the Vancouver Tea Festival, learning more about this new event and figuring out how I can help to make matcha a rewarding part of the visitor experience. 

My sense is that the main focus of the event is leaf teas, as this seems to be a growing specialty industry here in Vancouver and throughout Canada. Of course, matcha is heralded as an ultra-premium tea, and no tea shop seems to be able to claim any kind of legitimacy without carrying at least one variety of "ceremonial matcha." Even coffee shops these days can hardly be taken seriously if they don't at least offer a matcha latte. 

I find, however, that even with the word matcha becoming a familiar part of the North American vernacular, very few people -- including, I'm afraid, the intensively trained certified tea sommeliers being cultivated by the Tea Association of Canada program -- actually know much about the culture of matcha, aside from being aware that matcha is very good for you and the formal procedures for making it take a lot of time and are very complicated ... I believe the interest, however, is there and it's high time that the general public was offered more insight into the broader culture of matcha. 

Mrs. Sakaino of the Vancouver Urasenke Tankokai will be presenting abbreviated demonstrations of tea ceremony at the tea festival, and she always does a beautiful job, so rather than presenting another demonstration of tea preparation, I have offered to give a talk and slideshow explaining the "kuchikiri" (seal-breaking) celebration of opening the ceramic jar in which the tea leaves are stored for several months until they are ready to be ground into matcha. The timing is just right because the kuchikiri ceremony is held in November. Although few people are actually able to send tea jars to the packer to be filled and stored and returned to them any more, and few tea shops offer this service any more, the celebration of this start of the annual year of tea remains -- even if only symbolically -- an important part of the traditional practice of Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu). I hope that highlighting this important moment in the transformation from leaf tea into powdered tea will provide visitors to the Tea Festival with a more familiar common ground from which to approach matcha and will also provide some insight into a seasonal aspect of Japanese tea culture they might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience or even know exists.

If you're in the area and have an interest in tea, I hope to see you there!