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Wales Millennium Centre celebrates Japan Day
to coincide with Rugby World Cup
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To coincide with the Wales v Japan Rugby World Cup match at the Millennium Stadium on Thursday 20 September, Wales Millennium Centre will be hosting a day of Japanese culture with a free lunchtime performance by Taiko drummers Kagemusha and all day educational workshops on drumming, origami and the art of Japanese papermaking.
The Centre will also be celebrating its special links with Japan with the inauguration of the Japan Room by the Japanese Ambassador, His Excellency Mr Yoshiji Nogami, who will be unveiling two major specially commissioned pieces of Sumié art (traditional Japanese brushwork) by master of this art, Takumasa Ono. These commissions, supported by the Great Sasakawa Foundation, will form a permanent feature within the Centre, demonstrating its special links with Japan. The artwork depicts Pistyll Rhaeadr, and four striking images of the natural landscape of North, Mid, South and West Wales.
Two of the Centre’s hospitality rooms have been funded with support from Japan – The Sony Room and the Japan Room. Japanese inward investors and individual senior Japanese business executives, who once worked in Wales and are members of Clwb Hiraeth, in Tokyo, have supported the Japan Room.
Ambassador Nogami will be guest of honour at a special reception at the Centre, for senior members of the Japanese business community, hosted by Lord Rowe-Beddoe, Chairman of Wales Millennium Centre. First Minister Rhodri Morgan and Heritage Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas will also participate in the event. At this event LordRowe-Beddoe will announce a new Japan Fund, aimed at raising funds to establish Wales Millennium Centre as a centre of excellence for Japanese cultural activities at a grass roots level. This forms part of the Centre’s wider cultural ambitions to celebrate cultural diversity in Wales.
Lord Rowe-Beddoe said today, ‘Wales and Japan share far more than a passion for rugby. For nearly 35 years Wales has been welcoming Japanese companies as inward investors, from the first wave that arrived 1973. And with people came culture. Japanese companies have given Wales a lasting legacy, not just industrially with the introduction of advanced manufacturing methodologies, but culturally as well. We are indebted to them for their support of the Centre and we hope they continue to further cement that relationship with Wales through culture.’
The whole day will be a celebration of Japan and Japanese culture and is supported by the Japan Information and Culture Centre at the Embassy of Japan. The paper making workshop for adults is given by Elaine Cooper, a Swansea born artist, who has lived and worked in Japan for ten years, learning Washi papermaking with her master, a recognised National Treasure.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 |
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