How are you all doing? Eishi here AGAIN!
Thanks to my voice issues, I’ve been finding my creative outlet in writing this week. Hope you are not sick of reading my version of War and Peace.
The title today is a…
click bait…
but I am telling you more about the film project that I mentioned in another post.
It is an Asia New Zealand Foundation funded film project, and it will be directed by the dangerously talented film director/ academic extraordinaire, Fiona Amundsen.
This will probably become one of the most important works in my life as a rakugo performer and a human being.
It is all Fiona’s concept, and I just happen to be someone with the knowledge and skills that she needs to complete her project.
As a film director, an aikido practitioner, and a good human being who understands the utter stupidity of war, she came up with a concept to combine the remembrance/ reminder of the mistakes humans committed in WWII, the aikido concept of Zanshin, and the Japanese traditional storytelling of rakugo.
We connected closely especially because of our stance on war, and we have decided to create something that would hopefully show better options for fellow humans.
As some of you may know, I lost my great grandfather and other family members in Nagasaki, and my grandpa and great uncle were both hibakusha.
So I have a very strong reason to get involved in a project like this.
We have just started working together yesterday, so I thought this is a good time to let you know.
For those who want to know more about this project, please read Fiona’s interview. It was written for Tokyo Biennale, but we are trying to create the New Zealand version of this film/ installation.
