Four Sessions – Dance Hakushu 2009 – Ever Evolving!

                Dance Hakushu 2009 spans over four sessions connected through Four Sessions.
We made this decision to take this form at last at this 21st year since its inception in 1988. Up to this year, we have held the festival, long or short, in mid-summer only. However, this year, we would like to offer much richer experiences to the visitors – the experiences we had long wanted to share with the summer-only visitors: the sensation of mud and freshness of rice planting in June, the magnificent view of harvest and ripen plants in October, stern white mountains, crisp air and sky in February.

                Over the 20 years, our base of operations has been the Body Weather Farm in Hakushu, where we engage in farming all year round; we have been incorporating farming, farm-related workshops into the program of the festival; with the people in the community as our guests and supporters. The hunch was why we didn't introduce 'Hakushu all year round' 'Body Weather Farm all year round' to the visitors as well? Of course, there were challenges in planning and management. Yet, the main reason may have been our own indecision to put forward the philosophy of 'Body Weather ' at the basis of our living and activities for over thirty years.

                Magnificent nature, creatures living with well-calculated logic, daily farming allowing us to be in touch with life, earth, and water. In order to retain our origin, this year our festival of art and performance will be merged with active farming.  With people from both rural and urban communities. The open, ever-changing, self-transforming  relationship amongst bodis----our most intimate environment. This is how we initiated the event hoisting 'Body Weather'. Yes, like the weather, we receive the influence as a necessity and unfold mutual actions.

                So far Dance Hakushu visitors might have had an impression that the festival is  a place for art and performance per se  just in summer ---- a fashionable relish on top of  farm life. Dance Hakushu 2009 will be different.  We shall be wholistic: creativity, expression, festivity residing in every detail of time, space, emotion, and rituals, inseparable from the farm life and life of art. A site rich in feelings and emotions, Dance Hakushu will appear in every niche of  time- space-----the night before, aftermath, amid festivities----there will be joy and regrets.  Throughout the year, there are births, and there are also extinctions everywhere. There are aspirations and frustration as well. And from the super-human point of time, there are large mountains, sky, and warter witnessing all kinds of activities.

                Bring your body and mind without a tight plan so you get surprised and discover, as well as announced  programs. There is a major program for trying out farming. You might find out why rice in Hakushu tastes so good…
Dance Hakushu has been receiving over the years private, corporate and public financial subsidy and grants , but their scale has been scaled down drastically this time. Nevertheless  the our shared  natural and human resources still remain intact, intense enough to bring trigger your joy and excitement.

                Starting from the gathering on the eve of the festival, the festival is gradually going to heat up through eating, drinking, and talking. In the  June SOIL Session,  we will all help with 'bundling of seedlings' on the 13th; 'rice-planting' on the 14th. With the music of Korean performing arts ranging Nongak and Dengaku, the three-day festival on a weekend will unfold. Accomodations are prepared at the camp site in the Chestnut Grove and the Glasshouse. (Make sure to reserve.) Dance Hakushu continues in August, October, and February. We'd like to invite you to gather and participate in this year's Dance Hakushu through a total of Four Sessions, sharing the change and growth in nature and living beings on various levels as well as vegetables.

(Kazue Kobata, former Secretary General, now a veteran and planning and steering staff.)

* Purely individual,lay-person and private contributions  are most welcome----we appreciate the best such money based on true volition. Such is the most trust-worthy and sustainable support contributions to the festival. We also have the system of 'supporting membership'. We welcome any form of donations - both tangible and intangible.

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