JAPAN HOUSE

Welcome Spring with Ikebana!

Welcome spring with your own Ikebana arrangement!

Our next Cultural Enrichment meeting will be on Wednesday, April 2nd at 5:30 and as always will be open to all.  This month there will be a short demonstration of Ikebana (Japanese floral arranging) by Professor Kimiko Gunji and Jeanne Holey of the Illinois Prairie Chapter of the Ikenobo Ikebana Society.

Afterwards, if you want to try your hand we will provide a vase and choice of flowers for only $7 and you will be able to take it home with you!  If there are enough vases, the second one with flowers will only be $5.  This will be a great way to celebrate spring finally arriving! 

If you definitely plan to come please let me know at cvoelkl@uiuc.edu by Sunday, March 30th, 2008.  Feel free to come even if you don’t respond though----vases will be given on a first-come, first-serve basis to those that don’t RSVP.

We hope you join us!

An Evening Of SHAKUHACHI

The evening of March 5, 2008 was a very special one at Japan House.  We were honored to have Koji Matsunobu perform for a mix of students and Japan House Cultural Enrichment Group members.

The shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) was traditionally played by members of the Fuke sect of Japanese Zen for meditation practice, with the goal of achieving personal and spiritual maturity through the realization of the “ultimate tone” (tettei-on).  Today, the shakuhachi can be played by all and is enjoying a renaissance.

Koji Matsunobu received a Ph.D. in music education from Tokyo Gakugei University.  He is currently pursuing a second Ph.D. in aesthetic education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

Senchado presentation

Professor Emeritus Doyle Moore demonstrated the Senchado tradition of tea on a January evening at Japan House:

Senchado: The Way of Brewed Green Tea in the Chinese Tradition

Happy New Year!  I hope the New Year has started out well.  Things are busy as always at Japan House---we had hoped to arrange a cultural enrichment meeting for the month of January but our plans did not work out.  So our first meeting for the year will be on Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Senchado:  The Way of Brewed Green Tea in the Chinese Tradition
Presentation by A. Doyle Moore
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
5:30 p.m.
Japan House

A Doyle Moore, Professor, Emeritus, School of Art & Design, UIUC, is a graphic designer whose specialty is hand set type and hand printed books.  He holds teaching certificates in Japanese Flower Arranging and Japanese Tea Ceremony.  He has also studied special Japanese weaving techniques and has given numerous lectures on this subject for weavers’ guilds throughout the United States. During his forty-year tenure at the University, he taught courses in graphic design and Japanese aesthetics. 

Please help us celebrate on the eve of the Chinese New Year with this special presentation!

Lover's Exile Film Screening at Japan House

AEMS & Japan House Film Screening
The Lover's Exile: Bunraku Puppet Theatre of Japan

In Japanese with English subtitles
Wednesday, September 19, 2007, 5:30 p.m.
Japan House, 2000 S. Lincoln Ave., Urbana
Introduction by Professor Elizabeth Oyler
FREE        

Join us for an evening of bunraku, Japan's classical tradition of puppet theatre, in the serene surroundings of U of I's Japan House.  This film by Marty Gross is the only filmed adaptation of a full bunraku performance.  Professor Elizabeth Oyler, a specialist in medieval Japanese narrative and performance in the Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC), will provide an introduction.  The Lovers' Exile is an adaptation of Meido No Hikyaku (The Courier for Hell), a major work of classic Japanese dramatist Monzaemon Chikamatsu (1673-1724). Set in early eighteenth-century Japan, it tells the story of Chubei, a young messenger in love with a low-class prostitute at a local tea-house. He uses his clients' money in order to free her and the two flee the town, but are only able to briefly delay their tragic fate. Performed by the celebrated Bunraku Ensemble of Osaka. Thanks to the Asian Educational Media Service for bringing this film to us.

This will also be the first meeting of our Cultural Enrichment/Volunteer Group this year, so you will have a chance to hear about upcoming events at Japan House and ways in which you can volunteer.  We hope to see you!

An evening of folding...

Japan House was full of friends and supporters busily folding cranes for peace last night.  It was a wonderful evening with many different groups coming together.  There were third graders from Ellen Baranowski's class at Kenwood Elementary School, who helped us fold and delivered hundreds of cranes they had already folded in class.  There were teachers and students from the Campus Middle School for Girls, members of our volunteer group and University students from the Peace  Over a Bowl of Tea Group. It was heartening to see so many different ages working together with a common wish for peace.

Professor Gunji will deliver the cranes to Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima later this month, when she leads a tour of Campus Honors Students in Japan.

The peonies are blooming!

Don't forget to join us on Wednesday evening, May 2, 2007 for our Paper Cranes for Peace evening.  You'll have a chance to admire the beautifully blooming peonies too....

Paper Cranes for Peace

In these times of war, and horrors like the Virginia Tech killings, our need for peace is more important than ever. The evening of Wednesday, May 2, 2007, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. will be a very special one at Japan House.  Members of our Cultural Enrichment Volunteer Group, students from the Peace Over a Bowl of Tea Group, and all others who wish to attend, will come together to talk about the need for peace in this world and within ourselves, while folding cranes for peace.  Professor Gunji will conclude the evening by serving all a bowl of tea.

It is a Japanese legend that upon folding 1000 cranes (senbazuru) the folder is granted a wish. People from around the world have long sent origami cranes to Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan as a symbol and wish for peace.  Professor Gunji will be leading a Intercultural Study Tour, sponsored by the Campus Honors Program, to Japan on May 21st and will bring the cranes to Peace Memorial Park.  Each crane will include the name of the folder and any wishes they want to include. 

The Japan House Cultural Enrichment Volunteer Group is a group of current and prospective Japan House volunteers who meet monthly during the academic year for presentations of Japanese culture and the chance to drink tea and share good conversation.  The Peace Over a Bowl of Tea Group is a new group consisting of Campus Honors students that meets monthly.

No experience in origami is needed, only the desire to join us in wishing for peace.   We also invite school groups, other groups, and individuals to contribute cranes (please contact Japan House for necessary details). Call (217) 244-9934 or email japanhouse@uiuc.edu for more information.

Gardens and blossoms

Another wonderful Wednesday evening filled with great information, good company and lots of tea....thanks to Jim Bier for sharing his knowledge of Japanese gardens with the enthusiastic group!

Our group gathered behind the cherry blossoms....the branches cut and brought inside due to the impending frost:

Japan House garden talk

Spring is really here at Japan House and the gardens are becoming alive with with color again!  It is very fitting then, that the designer and builder of the Japan House gardens, Jim Bier, will be speaking at our monthly Cultural Enrichment Group meeting next Wednesday, April 4, 2007 at 5:00 p.m.  The talk will be open to everyone, as always, and will be followed by tea.  We hope you can join us!