This week, we continue our announcements of international groups.  Today we bring you a WMDF first: a Bangladesh dance experience. WMDF aims to change peoples’ perspectives of space and time, so we really hope you will take this chance to encounter this historic and important culture.

Kathak Dance Community

“Kathak Dance Community” (KDC) was established in 1990 by Nrittyaguru Saju Ahmed, who has a Kathak Classical Dance history of over 35 years, including the completion of the seven-year specialisation of the ‘Kathak’ Dance teaching & training course of Dance Maestro Pandit Birju Maharaz. KDC has taken part in many different national and international festivals around the world, and has also been featured in numerous TV shows. Presently, KDC is experimenting with various productions based on the classical movements of the Kathak traditional dance form, in pieces such as “The Silence of Spring”, “The Beauty of Rain”, “Love on a Moonlit Night”, and “Rhythm of Victory”.

www.kathakbd.com

Visual arts and contribution to the community are hugely important parts of our event. A great example of these goals is the flags we have seen for the last few years in and around Motomachi Park. Started as a project in response to the Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster in 2011, these flags have made significant connections between Japan and the UK. This WMDF blog post coincides with the start of a ten-day installation at the historic Salisbury Cathedral.

Now it’s just forty days until WMDF. Toozalii sent us this picture of them sharing the countdown around the world. Look at the top of the picture and you will see that they even live at: number 40! Check back here for more countdown profiles next week.

Toozalii International Community Artists

Toozalii use many different art forms to enable and to provide social inclusion workshops for minority groups within mainstream arts events around the world. For example, take a look at the flags in Motomachi Park, created from designs made in our own WMDF workshops and other places in Hakodate. In the last year, these flags have been exhibited at many locations around the UK, with a total audience of over 100,000 people! Toozalii have also been known to show off their varied skills in the projection mapping in the Chara area, and many other cool bits of WMDF.

www.toozalii.co.uk

WMDF often gives rise to collaborations between overseas and Japanese artists. This year, we recommend this Senegal-Japan combination!

Safaiko

This 3-person collaboration is named “Safaiko”, combining the Western African Wolof language’s “saf” and the Japanese language’s “saiko,” which both mean “best” or “the greatest”.

Mamadou Lo was born into a family of Senegalese griot or traditional storytelling musicians. He became a professional percussionist at the age of 14 and came to Japan for the fist time in 2000. He has collaborated with international musicians and is a percussionist that even Stevie Wonder loves! Mamadou believes the drum sounds are his words and the sounds are coming from his heart.

Professional dancer Ndeye Arame Lo was born in Senegal. She is one of the few performers talented in all genres of Senegalese dance including the Wolof Sabar and the Mandinka Serouba. She has performed with the famous singer Hassan Njgi and toured Senegal and Europe. This is her first visit to Japan.

When he was still a student at Hokkaido University, Yamakita Norihiko became obsessed with drumming while collecting insects in Cameroon.  He believes in creating music on self-made instruments. He invented a small percussion instrument called the “Narunaru,” which he produces from nuts found on the island of Amami, where he lives and works.

http://www.mamadoulo.net
http://ameblo.jp/tsuchinoue/