Japanese Events in London: 6th - 12th July 2009
The star festival (Tanabata) takes place on Tuesday, 7th July 2009. On this day, once a year, two stars and lovers called Altair and Vega, that are usually separated from each other by the milky way, are allowed to meet on this day and during the evening. In the night of the 7th July, Japanese place little bamboo trees in their garden. They also hang papers with wishes written on it on that tree in the hope they become true. On a bit of a tangent but intrestingly, when Japan hosted the G8 summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, the event coincided with Tanabata. As host, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda invited the G8 leaders to participate in the spirit of the festival and they were each asked to write a wish on a piece of paper called tanzaku, to hang the tanzaku on a bamboo tree. The event and tradition has a Chinese origin.
We couldn't find any Tanabata events in London but we did discover a play that will portray the myth. The play starts the middle of August 2009, for more information please contact the Tara Studio, address: 356 Garratt Lane, London, SW18 4ES - or
tara@tara-arts.com.For the latest and coolest Japanese band to visit the UK in ages, please go to page two on this blog post!
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OK, every now and again we get particularly excited about a Japanese event happening in London - and this is one of them. Welcome Soil and "Pimp" Sessions to London. Soil and Pimp are a seriously cool and energetic Japanese jazz band. The band consists of six members: Shacho ("agitator"), Tabu Zombie (trumpet), Motoharu (sax), Josei (keyboards), Akita Goldman (double bass) and Midorin (drums). Basically these guys are amazing. Loads of fun, style, coolness and that little bit of Japanese craziness that we all love. Playing this Thursday at Koko in London.
Update! 09/07/2009 We saw the gig! If you have a chance to see them perform you will not be dissapointed.Here are their links, their Japanese website, (in Japanese) and their myspace, (in English)
Their tour dates:
11 Jul 2009 20:00 The Garden Festival: Zadar
12 Jul 2009 20:00 Belgrade Summer Festival: Belgrade
15 Jul 2009 20:00 Fabrik: Hamburg
16 Jul 2009 20:00 Lido: Berlin
17 Jul 2009 20:00 Scala: Dusseldorf
18 Jul 2009 20:00 Jazz an der Donau: Straubing
20 Jul 2009 20:00 Central Station: Darmstadt
21 Jul 2009 20:00 Jazz Open: Stuttgart
22 Jul 2009 20:00 Open-Air-Festival: Jena -
The other Japanese events happening in London this week, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society, is a beautiful Zen garden designed to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and Britain. For more information follow here.
For those that voluteered at the Hammersmith Park Japanese Garden, mentioned in a previous blog post, this will be a real treat.
The main theme is the way nature contributes to relaxation, sustaining humanity through meditation. The garden has four scenes: an English meadow, a birch forest, a Japanese cedar forest and a waterfall, illustrating how the UK and Japan live in harmony.
Just a reminder to our visitors that we teach Japanese in London, which we proudly combine with Japanese culture. Kyoto and Japanese gardens is one of our cultural themes that we will present to our students. If you are interested to enrol on either the course or uniquely this talk, please register here.
To attend this guest talk will cost £24