Japanese Music and ‘haiku’ Poetry
By the Floating World Ensemble
Shino Arisawa (Shamisen, Vocals & Poetry), Clive Bell (Shakuhachi) will present Japanese traditional music on the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) and shamisen (3-string lute), which often accompany poems and songs depicting the beauty and fragility of love, loss, loneliness, and the essence of nature. Several ‘’haiku’’ poems with musical accompaniment will be read at the event. The original form of this musical genre can be traced back to the 17th century. Itinerant Buddhist monks played the shakuhachi. Jiuta (“songs of our town”) were handed down exclusively by blind men, and played on the shamisen in private households and entertainment districts for the rising urban and literate classes.
1st of April at 7.00, event will start 7.30
This event is part of an exciting programme of events from the Oriental Cultural Forum, which are held on the first Wednesday of every month.
Address:
Poetry Café (Poetry Society), 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX
Underground: Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line), Holborn (Piccadilly & Central Line
Clive Bell
is a musician and composer specialising in far eastern music. He studied the shakuhachi in Tokyo with Kohachiro Miyata. He has played live on Radio Three’s Late Junction, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Clive’s solo shakuhachi CD was reissued in 2005 on the ARC label. He writes for The Wire magazine.
Shino Arisawa studied koto, shamisen and singing. She currently teaches Japanese music at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she obtained her MMus and PhD in Ethnomusicology.
Haiku is a minimal form of poetry, able to evoke human emotion with its instated yet powerful expression. The fewest possible words of haiku (17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables) can create the greatest effect of portraying the complex universe, by extracting the essence of landscapes and sounds of nature. The current form of haiku was established during the Edo period (1600-1868), when Japan was at the height of cultural prosperity. Haiku has continued to develop, inspiring many talented poets at every era. Even today new haiku are created, reflecting contemporary subjects, and even English haiku have emerged, captivating people worldwide.
A frog leaps in The sound of the water Basho Matsuo (17th C) The ancient pond