I did it!

After 3 years of planning, I have finally launched the first rakugo club in the history of New Zealand!!! (*Please contact me if you want to contest this claim.)

As far as I know, I had been the only rakugo performer permanently based in New Zealand as of 5 October 2019. But this tragic statistics changed in a matter of a day.

Three brave people, two from New Zealand and one from Japan, joined this movement to make this world a better place by the power of stories. I am pretty sure they had no intention whatsoever other than having fun learning rakugo, but hey 🙂 I am infamous for exaggerating things a bit- I must be a rakugo performer or something.

We learned the basic of rakugo such as “kamishimo” (the technique to distinguish characters), stock characters (Hachi, Kuma, Inkyo, etc.), and some protocols. They even got to learn and perform a “kobanashi” (short stories).

Thus, the rakugo population of New Zealand quadrupled overnight on 6 Oct. I now proclaim 6 October as the National Rakugo Day©! (Someone is exaggerating again…)

You are still welcome to join the club, and you don’t have to participate in the “movement” per se…

Just come have fun with us!

The next meeting will be held 2:00-4:00PM, 20 October at a venue to be confirmed 🙂

Contact me via the “contact” page if you are interested!