Ikebukuro

Saturdays, Kakizakai Sensei picks me up at 7.15am (ouch) and Kundan at 7.20 then we head to the Western suburbs of Tokyo to join the city contingent of shakuhachi students for lessons all morning and afternoon. For us (from Chichibu) it is also the chance to visit the metropolis. This includes visiting Tokyu Hands Creative Life Store, a kind of DIY department store with every conceivable tool, material, equipment for making things, such as bicycle parts and pliers. The hyaku-en shop ($1 shop) provided a cracker for negotiating ginko nuts that Haruka harvested from the forest and at Ikebukuro branch of Tokyu Hands you can visit Nekobukuro to fraternise someone else's cat - a facility provided for a small fee to cater for apartment-bound Tokyoites in need of domestic feline liaison. On one occasion, I visited the tasty Indian curry shop that makes fresh naan next to Tokyu Hands in Shibuya and on another occasion I had beautiful sushi from Midori Souhonten. I am working on San'ya Mountain Valley with special attention to embouchure, long breath phrases and good mura-ishi feeling and subtle pitch inflections.

Bushwalking (hiking in the cyprus forest)

I realise 'bushwalking' is a quintessentially Australian term for the NZ tramping or Japanese 'hiking'. Yesterday, Kundan was 'heading for the hills' and stopped by to see if I would join him. The brisk cool morning air rapidly warmed as we rode our bikes into the sunny rural area at the base of the nearby hills. We made our ascent via mossy stones, cyprus 'acorn'-carpeted track steeply up the hill to a statue of a Buddhist deity (perhaps that's not the right word - someone who helps pilgrims in some area of life) looking out through a canopy of leaves and dots of autumnal colours until we reached a vista over Chichibu town. On this occasion, we were headed for sshrines no. 26 En'yuu-ji & no. 27 Dai'en-ji marked by old Jizo statues and stone pillars inscribed with the temple's full name. Enbutsu's Chichibu: Japan's Hidden Treasure book gives an outline for visiting all 34 temples, as well as an overview of history and the festivals, including the approaching famous Night Festival of Chichibu on 3 December. It is often the details that seem remarkable: another shrine, another temple, more steps and so on but remarkable little alcoves in which people thoughtfully and caringly placed fresh flowers in the shrine, fruit, beads, offerings; the community of tiny fox statues inside the altar at the fox shrine, as well as the two large stone guardians beside it; the stickers bearing prayers or wishes adorning the old red wooden structure of no.26 perching on the cliff-side; red bibs draped around small statues in memory of lost children. As we pedalled through the maze of rustic back streets to get there, tumbledown quaint cottages, rusted tin sheds and a pottery are interspersed with contemporary dwellings, wooden house atop warehouses, small agricultural plots with older people ploughing, weeding, stripping the old crops, dangling persimmons out to dry from windows, endlessly meticulous, manicured gardens of patiently pruned trees, densely planted tiny courtyards with jungles of flowers and ornamental plants, the smell of wood-fires and freshly tilled earth.

Autumn Chichibu Arts Residency

Two months in Sydney passed very quickly and now I am back in Chichibu during autumn/winter for an AsiaLink Performing Arts Residency funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and the NSW Ministry of the Arts. The purposed of this 3 month residency is creative practice and related research, involving composition for traditional Japanese instruments (shakuhachi and koto) with contemporary Western ensemble/orchestra and studying shakuhachi with Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei of the Shakuhachi Kenshukan. My research is the continuation of my gestural interaction with sonification and data-driven auditory display ARC work, particularly using eco and locative data for a new scalable sonification framework. The latter provides a fine reason to collect different kinds of auditory, environmental and GPS data on excursions and test our new aesthetic sonification toolkit/framework. Many toolkits exist but we emphasise scalability and a distinctive (musical) aesthetic-sounding outcome to make the display listenable, even interesting for data examination.

In contrast to the 37 degree temperature and extreme humidity of only two-and-a-half months ago, Chichibu is now beautifully crisp, clean, clear and autumnal with day-times reaching 15-16 degrees and night-times currently dropping to around 7. The thermal layers, socks, goretex boots and fleeces are thoroughly appropriate, together with gloves, scarves and beanies after nightfall. The trees are starting to transform and I was immediately struck by the ebullient voluptuous ripe persimmons hanging heavy on boughs of leafless trees. People are hanging out persimmons to dry and they feature among the numerous speciality seasonal vegetables in the local Belc supermarket - such as shitake, other wild mushrooms, enoki, delicious 'proteiny' flavoursome and aromatic matsutake (apparently naturally boosting the immune system and researched as a natural ingredient for curing cancer).

My cyber-caravan, so-called because it has superb Internet speeds providing an always-open conduit of immense proportions, backs onto a small market garden fruit, herb and vegetable plantation and faces a tall mountain of limestone, hacked away a little by local mining but otherwise picturesque and often shrouded in clouds. On the first Saturday evening, Kakizakai Sensei, Megumi-san and their family - Haruka, Takahashi and Emi - put on a warm welcome party for me and a birthday celebration for Kundan. Their hospitality was matched by some culinary delights such as 'nuggets' of fried buckwheat, prawn salad, Japanese noodles, a birthday cake, persimmon fruit and a gift of freshly harvested ginko nuts. Haruka likes to collect mountain tucker, things like ginko nuts, chestnuts, natural foods. This was a welcome relaxation at the end of a lesson day that started at 7.15am, as will be the custom on Saturdays.





Chichibu town fills a valley and through farms, agricultural plots, mining, industry and many workshops, purports a population similar in size to Bathurst in Australia but it has much more of a small-town feeling because there is only a small commercial hub centring around a few blocks near the main Shrine. It is, however, a pilgrimage town, where devotees go to visit the 99 shrines and temples dotted around the neighbouring hills in scenic locations. One striking and pleasantly surprising attraction in the first few days was the chrysanthemum festival that was installed around the main Shrine, displaying the most peculiar array of highly evolved hybrids and forms in sizes to make you gulp. The Japanese obviously take gardening and grooming plants extremely seriously, whether it is cloud-pruned domestic gardens, rock gardens, shrine and temple gardens or bonsai. These chrysanthemums seemed to confirm to this talent without bounds. I am also stoked by the serendipitous encounters with quaint vegetable and agricultural plots integrated amongst houses, ranging from grape vines, fruit tress, to utilitarian crops such as tea, cabbages, shallots.

I met Kundan on the way to our first lesson. He is Californian and resident in Australia for many years now but travelling forth, including to Japan and a recent disciple of shakuhachi. He is also a writer and kyudo (archery) practitioner, the sources of many interesting adventures, tales and experiences. Tonight we sought out a local soba (buckwheat noodle) shop, one of the local specialities for tempura and soba 'hotto'. I also had lemon and salt spiced octopus legs. There is a Kaiten (merry-go-round) sushi near by caravan but most nights dinner consists of fresh local ingredients, with matsutake mushrooms, gyoza (dumplings) and tofu being amongst my favourites so far.





Megumi-san has kindly lent me her bicycle that I have adapted with a taller seatpost, that I use to visit the supermarket (spacious baskets front and rear), the laundry, and recent adventures around town and into the forest and agricultural areas at the base of the mountain. This is definitely the right way to commute around here and it significantly expands my exploratory potential. looking forward to many excursions.

Synergy Percussion & TaikOz collaboration concert

An evening of primal power and transcendental beauty that will hold you hovering between heaven and earth.

In a rare collaboration, Synergy Percussion and TaikOz invoke the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and space in an inspirational concert of ancient instruments, poetry, chants and live computer processing.

Featuring a diverse range of special guest artists, The Five Elements will be performed for one night only at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Friday 23 November at 8pm.

TaikOz is renowned for their electrifying taiko drumming, combining elements of contemporary music and movement with the ancient practice of Wadaiko. Australia’s foremost percussion ensemble, Synergy, will explore the mysterious resonances of Chinese gongs and Himalayan singing bowls, instruments used in spiritual and shamanic practices for centuries throughout Asia.

Riley Lee is a Grand Master of the Japanese shakuhachi, a bamboo flute producing a hauntingly soulful sound, closely associated with the practice of Zen meditation since the 15th century. Daniel Yeadon is one of the world’s leading baroque cellists and performs from the cello suites of JS Bach. James Coates is one of Australia’s most inspiring exponents of spoken word, interpreting poetry ranging from the Sufi mystic Rumi to the ecstatic visions of Arthur Rimbaud.

TaikOz web site | Booking