{"id":1186,"date":"2014-07-09T13:36:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T04:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/?p=1186"},"modified":"2014-07-09T13:42:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T04:42:44","slug":"kodo-and-sado-by-tomohiro-mitome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/posts-by-kodo-ensemble-leader\/20140709_1186.html","title":{"rendered":"“Kodo and Sado” by Tomohiro Mitome"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/fb:like><\/div>
Tweet<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n
\n

July 1, 2014<\/p>\n

This is Tomohiro Mitome, leader of taiko performing arts ensemble Kodo.
\nAt the beginning of June, the rainy season set in around the\u00a0Kanto\u00a0area (near Tokyo) and I expected that it would reach us on Sado by mid-June. However, even though they have had rain on the mainland in Niigata, thanks to some westerlies we have mainly\u00a0had just clouds and it’s been around 24 degrees on Sado most of the time. It’s is a little chilly in the morning and at night.<\/p>\n

This month, I\u2019m going to talk about the connection\u00a0between Kodo and Sado.<\/p>\n

\"\u9f13\u7ae5\u6587\u5316\u8ca1\u56e3\u7814\u4fee\u6240\uff08\u4f50\u6e21\u5e02\u67ff\u91ce\u6d66\uff09\"<\/a>\"2\uff0fDSC05486\"<\/h3>\n
Kodo Apprentice Centre (Kakinoura, Sado Island)<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you include the years of our antecedant group Ondekoza, about\u00a040 years have passed since Kodo established its base on Sado Island. Before merging into\u00a0one city\u00a0(Sado City) a decade ago, the island\u00a0was divided into ten\u00a0municipalities. At first,<\/span>\u00a0our group was\u00a0based in\u00a0Hatano Town, then it moved to Mano Town, and finally\u00a0we relocated\u00a0to\u00a0Ogi Town\u00a0twenty-six\u00a0years ago. The Kodo Apprentice Centre was\u00a0located in Aikawa Town for six\u00a0years, then in Mano Town for four\u00a0years, and then it\u00a0moved to its current home of Kakinoura nineteen years ago.
\nMost of the Kodo members now seen on stage are graduates from our\u00a0Apprentice Centre in Kakinoura. Looking back, almost 200 young people to date have come to Sado Island to become Kodo apprentices. Some of them stayed on Sado after they finished the apprentice programme, and of course we, the Kodo members and\u00a0staff, live on Sado, have\u00a0families, and make our own connections in the community by living here and sending our children to school here.
\nIf you want to know why our group chose Sado Island for its base, well, it’s a long story that requires some time to explain. If you are interested and can read Japanese, please read Kodo’s 30th anniversary publication Inochi Moyashite, Tatakeyo. \u2013 30 Years of Kodo –<\/a><\/span>. You will\u00a0get to know a great deal\u00a0about our group and learn about its\u00a0roots. (Note: This book has Japanese text only with no English translation.)<\/p>\n

\"Kodo-5541-800px\"<\/a><\/h3>\n
Onidaiko<\/span> from “Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery”\uff08Photo: Simon Jay Price\uff09<\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

On Sado, there are a lot of traditional performing arts and festivals. As a performing arts ensemble, sometimes we arrange Sado’s traditional performing arts\u00a0to create stage pieces for our productions.\u00a0At the many festivals on Sado, the locals perform from door-to-door and each house treats the performers to\u00a0drinks and meals. Even if we just go along to observe the festivals, we are also invited into the houses to be treated to their hospitality. Since 1988 when Kodo moved to Kodo Village in Ogi we have always been\u00a0invited to join in for the\u00a0local festivals, so we take part, visit many houses, and enjoy\u00a0their hospitality time and again.<\/p>\n

\"\u5ca9\u9996\u307e\u3064\u308a\u306e\u69d8\u5b50\"<\/p>\n

Iwakubi Festival on Sado Island<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

Naturally, we also want to show our appreciation to the people on Sado who always take care of us. So we hold our own “Kodo Village Festival” at our base,\u00a0in the same spirit that each community has its own festival on Sado. It doesn’t have a fixed date or the history of other\u00a0festivals, but we are happy to create this chance to show our appreciation to people in a personal way.<\/p>\n

The Kodo Cultural Foundation has been working on\u00a0various\u00a0projects to activate local communities. One of these\u00a0projects\u00a0is the Sado Island Taiko Centre (Tatakokan<\/span>). Its main program\u00a0welcomes numerous\u00a0school children for “Taiko Experience” workshops when they visit Sado Island on stay-over\u00a0school trips. The Centre has become solidly rooted in the community as a leisure facility, too.<\/p>\n

\"\u592a\u9f13\u4f53\u9a13\u306e\u69d8\u5b50\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In July, Kodo will give a wide\u00a0range of performances: “Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery” in Japan, “DADAN” in Europe, and other solo & small-group performances in Japan and the USA. Sado Island is famous for its gold mine and toki<\/span> (crested ibises), and we hope to be one of the things that comes to mind in association with\u00a0Sado Island, too. With our performances, we are also doing our best to\u00a0introduce & promote Sado Island to our audiences. We will work harder and harder to do this with more power, as\u00a0our way of saying thank you to Sado Island.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a><\/p>\n

\"tomohiro_s\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 1, 2014 This is Tomohiro Mitome, leader of taiko performing arts ensemble Kodo. At the beginning of June, the rainy season set in around the\u00a0Kanto\u00a0area (near Tokyo) and I expected that it would reach us on Sado by mid-June. However, even though they have had rain on the mainland in Niigata, thanks to some westerlies we have mainly\u00a0had just clouds and it’s been around 24 degrees on Sado most of the time. It’s is a little chilly in the morning and at night. This month, I\u2019m going to talk about the connection\u00a0between Kodo and Sado. Kodo Apprentice Centre (Kakinoura, Sado Island)   When you include the years of our … \u25b6\u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[67,32,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}