JENNIFER YUEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Third-year student
Emily Jen rehearses odori, a traditional Japanese
dance, for the Nikkei Student Union Culture Night which will be
performed at Royce Hall this Sunday.
By Michael Rosen-Molina
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
With modern music and traditional dance, serious historical
drama and light-hearted comedy, the Nikkei Student Union’s
Japanese American Culture Night runs the gamut, exploring several
different facets of Japanese culture.
The event takes place at Royce Hall on Sunday, offering viewers
the chance to celebrate Japanese history and culture.
“We want the audience to see another side of Japanese
culture,” said Culture Night director Lynn Shimohara.
“This Culture Night will show different aspects of Japan that
many students might not have seen before.”
The evening will feature two plays ““ a short, humorous
fable and a longer, dramatic performance. In addition, the night
will showcase Japanese taiko drumming, odori dancing and modern
music.
Set shortly before the second world war, the drama tells the
story of a college aged boy rebelling against his father. He leaves
home to live on his own, but eventually returns only to find that
his family is struggling to survive. The drama uses the boy’s
story to examine the problems faced by Japanese Americans during
the 1940s, including internment during the war and the readjustment
to society after the war.
“Most people don’t know about internment,”
Shimohara said. “A lot of the drama is based on real
experiences; the writers talked to their grandparents to find out
what life was really like back then.”
NSU holds its Culture Night celebration on Feb. 18 to
commemorate the 1941 signing of Executive Order 9066, the order
that authorized the internment of Japanese American citizens.
On the lighter side, the short fable provides some comic relief
with a fictionalized account of the origins of sumo wrestling.
“Usually, the fable is either a traditional Japanese fairy
tale or just something we make up,” fourth- year psychology
student Brian Nagami said. “It’s important to remember
traditional fables, but, as Japanese Americans, it’s also
important to come up with our own, too.”
This year’s fable, written by Nagami and fifth-year
biology student Larry Katata, is “Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Sushi.” The story follows the adventures of a young girl who
longs to become a sumo wrestler. Told that the career is not open
to women, she decides to leave her village on a journey to find her
place in the world. She returns to find her hometown besieged by a
gang of oni, villainous Japanese ogres. The townspeople turn to the
local sumo regiment for help, but find them powerless to stop the
onis.
In last year’s production, the fable was embedded in the
dramatic play, presented as a story told by one of the characters.
Nikkei abandoned the format for this year’s culture
night.
“Last year’s drama was more contemporary,”
Nagami said. “This year, it’s based in the 1940s,
making it more difficult to incorporate. It would have been
corny.”
After the fable, UCLA’s Kyodo Taiko will demonstrate
classic Japanese taiko drumming, using large and middle-sized
drums.
“We want to share the spirit of taiko,” said
fifth-year east asian studies student Mary Kay Tsuji, the Kyodo
Taiko representative. “This year we’re concentrating on
getting back to the original style of taiko, getting back to more
heart and soul.”
Kyodo will perform several different compositions. In the first
piece, “Heartbeat,” the drummers play their instruments
to imitate the sound of a human heartbeat. “Heartbeat”
is performed in the “ratai” style, as the drummers sit
on the floor and use their abdominal muscles to move themselves up
and down. The second piece “Rai” (Thunder) recalls the
glory of nature and the excitement of a deafening thunderstorm. In
the third piece, “Matsuri” (Festival), the drums are
played slant style, tilted at a 45 degree angle.
“Matsuri” imitates the movements of Japanese rice
pounding.
“It’s an old Japanese custom,” Tsuji said.
“Two people will stand around a stone bowl and pound rice in
rhythm using wooden hammers. Pounded rice, or mochi, is a typical
Japanese new year’s dish.”
Culture Night will also feature two dance pieces. One will
consist of modern dances, including hip hop, jazz and Japanese pop
music, while the other will showcase traditional Japanese odori
dancing with an upbeat spring celebration theme.
“The dancers are really good. They’re really
hard-core; they start dressing at 12:30 p.m. and they don’t
finish until 6 p.m.,” Shimohara said about the dancers’
dedication to their craft. “They don’t eat or drink
anything the whole time because the kimonos are rented and they
can’t mess up their make-up.”
Shimohara hopes that the audience will leave with a new
appreciation for the nuances of Japanese culture but stressed that
Culture Night is also an educational experience for its cast and
crew.
“Culture Night is all about sharing with the
audience,” Nagami said. “But it’s about looking
back at our history and learning about ourselves.”
EVENT: The Nikkei Student Union’s 15th
Annual Culture Night will take place on Sunday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.
at Royce Hall. Admission is free, but tickets are required for
entry. For more information and ticket reservations, contact
[email protected].