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10 years of Foyle Obon in 2024!

Can you believe it is 10 years since the very beginning of Foyle Obon?! In 2014, a small group of dedicated people came together to form Foyle Obon, a registered charity organisation which aims to use Japanese arts as a force for good in post conflict Northern Ireland. To celebrate we will be looking back and sharing some of the highlights and special moments for some #foyleobonflashbackFridays throughout 2024!

Today we are looking back to 2013 when some of our Foyle Obon taiko fam spent time with Neil Cowley and his trio as part of the City of Culture programme. The Ibuki Taiko team had some exploratory sessions bringing taiko and jazz and Neil’s class energy together. Fiona Umetsu went on to create a piece of taiko to play as part of the premiere of Neil’s piece 8^th Gate at the Guildhall in December 2023. It was a collaboration that we will never forget, especially watching Neil and Evan and Rex near blow the roof off the Guildhall with that unforgettable final performance!

Marrying Mum & Dad at the BBC!

Today we are looking back to a wild and windy day spent on Lustybeg Island in 2016, when members of our Foyle Obon fam we were featured on the CBBC show “Marrying Mum and Dad”.

“Marrying Mum and Dad” is a show where the kids secretly come up with a theme for their parent’s wedding and a lovely family from Northern Ireland decided upon a Japanese theme for the big day.

Yoriko Marshall (the amazing chairperson of Foyle Obon) who is talented kimono expert, dressed the bride in a traditional Japanese Bridal kimono on the day. Artist Naomi Fleury taught the family some origami and created a beautiful origami boat.

Ibuki Taiko drummers provided some rhythms and spectacle for the wedding vows and drummed their hearts out.

We met Naomi Wilkinson and Ed Petrie who were funny and lovely hosts and really enjoyed being part of such a beautiful wedding!

You just never know what interesting japes you get up to when you are a part of Team Obon!

Taiko for Health & Wellbeing

Today’s #flashbackfriday is more of a current affair as we are delighted to be featured in the Derry Journal talking about our Taiko for Mental Health and Wellbeing Project!

In a ground-breaking initiative, Foyle Obon secured funding in 2022 through the Department of Health’s Mental Health Fund to collaborate with Ulster University. The partnership aimed to explore and evaluate the impact of a long-term program of regular taiko drumming classes, coupled with participation in a local community arts festival, on mental health and wellbeing post-COVID pandemic. The collaboration resulted in an academic research report led by Dr Grainne McAnee from Ulster University.

Read all about it here…

https://www.derryjournal.com/…/derry-organisation-foyle…

Derry Halloween 2016

Can you believe it is 10 years since the very beginning of Foyle Obon?! To celebrate we would like to look back and share some highlights and special moments for some #foyleobonflashbackFridays in 2024!

This week we are looking way back to a cold and spooky Halloween night in 2016.

That was the year Foyle Obon gathered a group of genki folks to don Kao Nashi costumes and participate in the famous Derry Halloween parade representing the famous Ghibli movie ‘Spirited Away’. Talented local artist, Katsutoshi Umetsu, created a giant model of the dragon “Haku’ from the film.

Kids and adults from our taiko and Obon community, folks from the Japanese diaspora far and wide joined together to make up a scary party of Kao Nashi and dance with Haku across the city.

Joined with the sound of taiko drums, our kao nashi and haku ryu dragon were just class!

フォイルオボンが始まってから10年が経ちました！これを記念して、2024年の#foyleobonflashbackFridaysのために、いくつかのハイライトと特別な瞬間を振り返り、共有したいと思います！

今週は、2016年の寒くて不気味なハロウィーンの夜を振り返ります。

この年は、フォイル・オボンが顔なしのコスチュームを着て、有名なジブリ映画「千と千尋の神隠し」でデリー・ハロウィーン・パレードに参加するために、元気な人々を集めた年でした。地元のアーティスト、梅津勝利氏は、映画に登場する龍「ハク」の巨大な模型を制作。

和太鼓やオボンのコミュニティーの子供たちや大人たち、もちろん日本人ファミリーも一緒になって、顔なしの怖いパーティーを作り上げ、街中でハクと一緒に踊りました。

太鼓の音に合わせての、顔なしと白竜のダンスはみごとでした。

Tea Ceremony 2019

Today we are looking back to 2019 when we hosted a tea ceremony in the beautiful grounds of the Beech Hill Hotel. We are so lucky to have Hiromi Takahashi, a Japanese Tea master, live locally here in the Northwest. Hiromi san shared this beautiful tradition with an intimate group of lucky participants.

The tea ceremony is a tradition steeped deep in Japanese history. It is a ceremonial way of preparing and drinking tea. During the Tea ceremony you are served with courses of tea and sweet delicacies called ‘Wagashi’. Beyond just serving and receiving tea, one of the main purposes of the tea ceremony is for the guest to enjoy the hospitality of the host in an atmosphere distinct from the fast pace of everyday life.

It was such a special moment – the beautiful early summer sunshine, the sound of the water and the birds all blended with the lovely airs that our Irish harpist Lucia McGinnis was playing to accompany the ceremony.

We are just loving looking back at all these memories! All photography by Gavan Connolly.

Festival 2015

Can you believe it is 10 years since the very beginning of Foyle Obon?! To celebrate we will be looking back and sharing some of the highlights and special moments for some #foyleobonflashbackFridays throughout 2024!

In 2014, a small group of dedicated people came together to form Foyle Obon, a registered charity organisation which aims to use Japanese arts as a force for good in post conflict Northern Ireland.

As well as delivering year-round outreach programmes in the community, we are home to the Foyle Obon Japanese Festival – the only Obon festival in Europe and the only place in Northern Ireland where you can get good Kakigori shaved ice!

We had our very first festival in 2015 where we created a ‘Little Tokyo’ with lots of games, workshops, performances and delicious food in our new home at the Playtrail.

We had lots of taiko drumming by Ibuki Taiko, dance by Fireworks DDTA and Create Dance, singing by the Inishowen Gospel choir and it was the first time we welcomed the traditional Japanese dancers of Hannari Club from Carrickfergus!

It was the beginning of a new community festival in the North of Ireland and for the last 10 years has created a new, shared space for everyone in our community.

フォイルお盆の始まりから10年が経ちました！これを記念して、2024年を通して、#foyleobonflashbackFridaysで、ハイライトや特別な瞬間を振り返り、共有します！

2014年、少人数の熱心な人々が集まり、紛争後の北アイルランドで日本の芸術を善の力として活用することを目的とする登録慈善団体、フォイル・オボンを設立しました。

年間を通じて地域社会にアウトリーチ・プログラムを提供するだけでなく、フォイル・オボン・ジャパニーズ・フェスティバルを開催しています。これはヨーロッパで唯一のお盆フェスティバルであり、北アイルランドで美味しいかき氷が食べられる唯一の場所です！

2015年に初めて開催されたお祭りでは、プレイトレイルという新しい会場で、たくさんのゲームやワークショップ、パフォーマンス、おいしい食べ物で「リトル・トーキョー」を作りました。

伊吹太鼓による和太鼓演奏、Fireworks DDTAとCreate Danceによるダンス、イニショーウェン・ゴスペル・クワイアによる歌、そしてキャリックファーガスからHannari Clubの伝統的な日本舞踊家を初めてお迎えしました！

北アイルランドの新しいコミュニティ・フェスティバルの始まりであり、この10年間、コミュニティのみんなのための新しい共有スペースを作り出してきた。2015年の懐かしのギャラリーをご覧になりたい方は、私たちのウェブサイトをチェックしてください！

YuJo Taiko in Claudy

Today we’re looking back on our very first Taiko youth group, Yujo Taiko. Yujo (meaning ‘friendship’) Taiko was formed in 2013 by Fiona Umetsu with a grant from The City of Culture small grants fund. The goal for this youth group was to create a taiko team made up of young people from both Catholic and Protestant primary schools in Claudy in rural county Derry.

In our fractured society, drumming and festivals can be divisive and seen to belong to one group or the other. We wanted to share a new page of Northern Irish culture and develop a new way of coming together in an inclusive, safe, shared community space.

The seven years of Yujo Taiko were full of laughs and smiles, the young people made friends and learned a lot including from international taiko players such as Eiichi Saito and Eri Uchida from Kodo in 2017. They graced many stages and were at the heart of our annual Foyle Obon festivals. We were so fortunate to have such great kids and their families to play taiko with! You can find the video about this project at this link, just looking at all the wee faces makes us nostalgic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89fN652_ufw

Ei-chan & Eri From kodō

Today we look back to early 2017 when we welcomed Eiichi Saito and Eri Uchida of Kodō to deliver workshops. Kodō is arguably the most well-known and respected taiko group worldwide and has been considered an ambassador group for taiko performance outside Japan.

Ei-chan and Eri were so full of energy and ‘taiko beams’ and our young YuJo Taiko members and Ibuki Taiko adult players learned so much from them. They shared their skills with young and old and even made it to join a traditional Irish music session where Eri wooed the home musicians with a rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ on her shinobue flute.

Having Kodō members in Derry was such a dream come true for us all in 2017 and now again in 2024!

Risshun

Throughout the years Foyle Obon and the Ibuki Taiko team has been a part of many festivals and celebrations. Today we look back on the Risshun festivals organised and brought about by the North West Japanese Cultural Group which was founded by the lovely and much missed Junko Okura.

Risshun is the first day of spring in the Japanese calendar and is celebrated as a part of the Haru Matsuri (spring festival). On Setsubun day, the day before Risshun Japanese people hold a traditional event to drive away evil spirits (oni) by throwing beans and shouting ‘Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!’ We enjoyed the ‘oni’ and the bean throwing every year. We like to think our drums also scared away a few oni too!

Online Radio Taiso

We are skipping forward to 2020 and how we kept our community together during the endless lockdowns! We had the bright idea that a good way to connect and keep our fitness levels up would be to have some online Radio Taiso sessions! Radio Taiso is an exercise routine that has been practised for nearly 100 years in Japan. It is broadcast every morning at 6:30 am on the Japanese public station NHK Radio 1.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings our directors Fiona and Katsu shifted all the furniture out of their living room and got ready for a session of Radio Taiso. They were joined by our friends and participants from all over the island of Ireland. Participants reported that they felt so connected and less isolated and especially loved fancy dress Fridays when Katsu would dig into the Foyle Obon Halloween dress up boxes and keep us all amused!!

St Patrick’s Parade 2015

One of the ways that Foyle Obon has brought Japanese arts and traditions onto our shared civic calendar and onto the streets of Derry was to take part in the Derry and Strabane District Council community parades.

Here we are in 2015 at the St Patrick’s Day Spring Carnival parade, proudly flying the Koi Nobori flags and dancing!

Foyle Obon Japanese Cultural Director, Katsu Umetsu, is originally from Yamagata in the Tohoku region of Japan. It is famous for the Hanagasa dance with hand-made flower-hats. The hats are traditionally made of straw and decorated with artificial safflowers, the symbol of Yamagata. Katsu had to use his ingenuity to make some Hanagasa hats out of linoleum and red flowers! Not the first time Katsu has had to make do and mend for us here in the North West of Ireland where, as you can imagine, it can be hard to put your hand to traditional Japanese things.

Our work is supported and helped along by the generosity and kindness of so many people in our community both here and in Japan. All the traditional yukata (summer kimono) were donated to Ibuki Taiko by the local Yamagata dance groups and Katsu’s Mammy donated the Koi Nobori!

Dance teachers Carie Logue-Houston and Nadine Hegarty taught our fantastic and genki volunteers and dancers the traditional Hanagasa dance and we had just the best time dancing along the streets!

Torō Nagashi on the Foyle 2014

Can you believe it is 10 years since the very beginning of Foyle Obon?! To celebrate we will be looking back and sharing some of the highlights and special moments for some #foyleobonflashbackFridays throughout 2024!

In 2014, a small group of dedicated people came together to form Foyle Obon, a registered charity organisation which aims to use Japanese arts as a force for good in post conflict Northern Ireland.

Their first foray into the world of cultural events was a torō nagashi lantern floating ceremony on the banks of the river Foyle. As part of the DCSDC Clipper festival, volunteers from Foyle Obon helped the public dedicate their lanterns with wishes and remembrances. These dedications were then carefully transferred onto the 100 lanterns all specially hand-made for the occasion by Katsu Umetsu, a local Japanese artist.

Brave and slightly crazy, the drummers and musicians of Ibuki Taiko, the singers from Allegri choir, dancers from Fireworks DDTA and the lovely Mary Murphy all balanced on a floating stage as we released the lanterns onto the river on a beautiful summer evening.

Did the lanterns behave as we wanted? Nope…Was the river a bit too big and fast? Yep…Was it dark enough? Nope…Did the organising committee nearly throw up with nerves…ABSOLUTELY! But it was the very first step into the world of bringing Japanese arts, culture and traditions onto the civic cultural calendar of Derry-Londonderry to start to build our community and share the joy.

We worked with Foyle Search and Rescue to safely gather up the lanterns from the big crazy river and each year since, we have held a lantern ceremony at our Foyle Obon Festival in the grounds of The Playtrail. Safely on dry land!

The Matsuri Project 2023

The Matsuri Project

‘Matsuri’ translates as ‘festival’ in Japanese. At the heart of many Japanese festivals, there is a small core group of ‘matsuri’ musicians who play the familiar folk songs and bon odori dance repertoire. We wanted to create a similar live experience for our homegrown festival audiences and participants and are delighted to have been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to bring this group together for our festival in May 2023. Led by Fiona Umetsu on taiko drum, and composer Sarah Murphy on shinobue flute, this project brings together Ibuki Taiko drummers Ruth McCartney, Diana McLaughlin, Ciaran McCay, Micheal McCay, Forton Umetsu and Ami Umetsu to collaborate with Ronan McKee on marimba, Lucia McGinnis on harp and Emma Louise Bond and Sophie Doran on vocals.

Lead taiko artist, Fiona Umetsu, commented: ‘Matsuri is at the heart of everything we do at Ibuki Taiko. We hold the spirit of festival, of community, of kindness, of fun and joy at the forefront of our work. Coming together as Ibuki Taiko with a wider group of such talented musicians to learn and play these three pieces is so exciting!’

The Matsuri Group will perform a select repertoire of pieces special to Foyle Obon on the evening of May 20^th2023.

Taiko Love Composed by Sarah Murphy for Foyle Obon

This piece was commissioned by Foyle Obon and supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2017. Local flautist and composer Sarah Murphy created a piece inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of community taiko and dance.

Sarah wove together Irish and Japanese Obon dance rhythms and included a fragment of the traditional Irish melody “The Gates of Derry” in order to place this Japanese Obon dance music in an “Ancient Oakgrove” “On the banks of the River Foyle”. Both of these phrases can be heard on voices that also tell of “Cherry Blossom”, an iconic image associated with Japan, and the “beam beam of drum” which describes the energy and bouncing life of a Taiko group that beats from the heart, as described in a workshop for Ibuki Taiko given by visiting Taiko Master Eiichi Saito.

The addition of Irish harp, played alongside Taiko drums, Shinobue, Voice and Marimba, also helps to root this celebration of Japanese Obon music and dance in Ireland. Other sections of the piece are inspired by the twinkling lights of Japanese lanterns floating at night, and the chanting of “Taiko Love!” which embraces the Spirit, Light and Matsuri of Foyle Obon Festival.

Ei Ja Nai Ka (Isn’t it Good?) Ei Ja Nai Ka (Isn’t it Good?) Rhythm, kakegoe, and dance composed by PJ Hirabayashi 1994, lyrics and melody composed by Yoko Fujimoto 2001.

Ei Ja Nai Ka is a bon odori piece created by PJ Hirabayashi, creator of TaikoPeace and a founding member of San Jose Taiko. The inspiration for Ei JaNai Ka? (EJNK) came from the high energy of Japanese festivals and folk dances, such as Kyushu’s Kokura Gion Matsuri and Awa Odori of Shikoku. EJNK is dedicated to the issei, the first Japanese immigrants to the U.S., and celebrates Japanese American history through movements that reflect the issei’s jobs in agriculture, mining, and railroad construction. In recent years, EJNK has expanded beyond San Jose Taiko and is included in a growing number of North American Obon or Japanese American summer festivals.

Four members of San Jose Taiko, Franco Imperial, Wisa Uemura, Geoff Noone and Yurika Chiba came to Derry in 2019 and performed at the Foyle Obon festival. It was the beginning of a friendship between our two taiko families. They taught us the Ei Ja Nai Ka dance during their stay and we danced and performed it the festival. It was a memorable and beautiful experience.

Fiona Umetsu, and through her, this Matsuri Group, has been given permission to dance, play and sing ‘Ei Ja Nai Ka’ by PJ Hirabayashi, Yoko Fujimoto and San Jose Taiko for our festival on May 20 2023. We see it as an honour and a joy to bring this beautiful and much beloved ‘anthem of North American taiko celebrating the heart and spirit of taiko drumming’ here to Ireland.

Inochi Kagayake, Warera ga Matsuri Composed by Shogo Yoshii for Foyle Obon. Shogo Yoshii, a world renowned taiko and shinobue flute player and composer from Yokohama, Japan, was due to attend the 2020 Foyle Obon festival with this specially commissioned piece and play it together with our local musicians. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, this was not to be. We were gutted!

Fiona Umetsu, Sarah Murphy, Ronan McKee and the Ibuki Taiko drummers took on the challenge of rehearsing and recording the piece so that it would not be lost. It was quite a challenge but thanks to the lovely Feargus Murphy, we recorded our version of the piece in January 2021. We have never performed the piece live.

During the recording, we had the very sad loss of Junko Okura, a taiko player who was at the heart of Ibuki Taiko. Junko was at every rehearsal and practice when we began to break down and learn this piece. She pushed the project forward at times when we thought it would have to be abandoned due to the pandemic pressures and challenges around rehearsing safely. Junko had taken the part of chanchiki and rehearsed right up until December 2021 with the team. Unfortunately, her health took a turn for the worse and she was unable to continue. Shogo Yoshii had always said that we would know the name for this new piece when we played it. To recognise Junko’s contribution to the creation of our version of this beautiful music, Fiona asked Junko if she would give it a name.

She chose – Inochi Kagayake, Warera ga Matsuri – which translates as ‘Shining, glittering, sparkling life …we are all Matsuri’ which, we have to admit, did initially make us scratch our heads just a little…what could Junko have meant?

But as we played the piece, as we came together as a taiko family after the loss of Junko, after the separation of lockdowns and pandemics, we realised that Junko had captured the very essence of this big, beautiful taiko family in that name. Life and light do indeed come shining out of all of us when we play taiko, when we gather in community…we are the festival. We are the festival. Warera ga matsuri. Life is indeed glittering and sparkling out of us all when we play. It is the ‘taiko beam’ that Eiichi Saito from Kodo taught us about. It is the Ki that we share when we play and join in community. It is love and light and energy. TaikoLove.