Odaiko New England is very pleased to return to Rhode Islands’s 36th annual Black Ships Festival, August 9th and 10th.
Friday evening, catch our full performance at 7pm at Independence Park. The event is free. Bring chairs and blankets to sit out on the grass.
Saturday will feature multiple small performances throughout the day as part of the Arts & Crafts and Martial Arts Fair featuring demonstrations, workshops, and displays. And in the evening, we’ll be performing at the Black Ships Festival Gala.
The Black Ships Festival is a weekend-long festival celebrating the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to United States trade. The “Black Ships,” or “Kurofune,” refers to the Japanese term for foreign ships.
To celebrate this friendship, the Japanese city of Shimoda also celebrates this festival.
The Black Ships festival is hosted by the Japan-America Society of Rhode Island.
Join us at the 137th annual Bolton Fair in Lancaster, MA for an old fashioned agricultural fair with petting zoos, tractor pulls, fiddler contests, lumberjack shows, acrobats, livestock contests, exhibitions and entertainment. Odaiko New England will be performing on Sunday, August 11th.
Tickets available on line at http://www.boltonfair.org/. Parking is free
Summer festivals are a seasonal tradition in Japan. Typically hosted by a shrine or temple, people wear yukata (summer kimonos) and play fun games while eating foods and snacks sold at food stands. The Brandeis Japan Student Association aims to share this tradition with the community through good food and fun, interactive activities; they will have a Japanese taiko performance, yakisoba at a food stand, and traditional summer games such as suika-wari (watermelon smashing)
Join Odaiko New England on the great lawn at Brandeis University for their Natsu Matsuri, or Summer Festival. ONE will be performing at 12:30.
The Arlington Commission on Arts & Culture is hosting Garage Band, a dance party at the Arlington Service Station, a gas station on Mass Ave in Arlington. Arlington Service Station is located within Arlington’s newly minted Cultural District, and owner Abe Sahli was inspired by the designation to commission local artist Johnny Lapham to paint a mural on his station, including on the pumps! It’s exuberant and beautiful, as you may have seen, and now Abe is getting into concert presenting. Our first event was last June, and we had a crowd of about 1,500 joyful, dancing people. This is a free event focused on bringing together the community.
Join the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture for a festive celebration of art in public places! Take a walking tour with the 4 artists involved in this season’s PATHWAYS, installations of temporary public art inspired by the Minuteman Bikeway in Arlington’s Cultural District. Enjoy an open air concert by the raucous, soulful Revolutionary Snake Ensemble and Odaiko New England’s dynamic Taiko drummers. Activities take place in SPY POND PARK (located at Linwood Circle), at the Kickstand Cafe and along the Minuteman Bikeway. Odaiko New England will be playing at the Kickstand Cafe plaza at 3pm and 3:45pm located at the intersection of the Bikeway and Swan Place/Mass Ave.
You can bike, take the Mass Ave Bus, or park for free in nearby neighborhood streets. Light refreshments served, including pizza donated by Za Restaurant. Raindate: September 22.
SCHEDULE: SPY POND PARK
At Linwood Circle
4 to 4:30 pm REVOLUTIONARY SNAKE ENSEMBLE
Enjoy the joyful sounds of this innovative group of superb musicians inspired by New Orleans Mardi Gras music and spirit
4:30 pm ARTIST WALKING TOUR – remarks artists Freedom Baird, Resa Blatman, Chris Frost, and Johnny Lapham and curator Cecily Miller
5 to 6 pm REVOLUTIONARY SNAKE ENSEMBLE second set
SCHEDULE: KICKSTAND CAFE PLAZA
At the intersection of the Bikeway and Swan Place/Mass Ave, in Arlington Center
3 to 3:15 pm ODAIKO NEW ENGLAND
A dynamic performance of Japanese Taiko drumming by students and teachers of this Arlington school dedicated to preserving this traditional art form.
3:15 pm THANK YOU to 6 Transformer Box artists who have painted 5 utility boxes around town — collaborators Laurie Bogdan & Karen McCarthy, Aubrey Cloutier, Chi-Yun Lau, Molly Scannell and Shun Yamaguchi — and their sponsors.
3:45 to 4 pm ODAIKO Second Set
Join us on Bedford Day and enjoy their fair and parade, and, of course, taiko!
The Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center’s Experience Chinatown Arts Festival is a family friendly afternoon of performances and activities.
Odaiko New England will be performing at the Chinatown Gate. In the event of rain, the performance will be moved to the Pao Arts Center, 99 Albany Street, Boston, MA.
Please join us for our 25th Anniversary celebration at the Regent Theater on Sunday, December 8th at 8pm. Special guest artist Tiffany Tamaribuchi. Early bird tickets are $20 ($15 for students). Tickets at the door will be $25 ($20 at the door.) Buy your tickets today.
Oshogatsu, a festival welcoming the New Year, is one of Japan’s most important annual festivals. Join us at the Children’s Museum to celebrate 2020, the Year of the Rat. Following our performance will be a shi-shi-mai (lion dance) and parade with taiko accompaniment.
今年もよろしくおねがいします
The performance is free with admission to the museum. For more information, please visit The Boston Children’s Museum event calendar.
Join us at North Quincy high school for their 2020 Lunar New Year Festival with food, contests, family fun, lion dance and taiko! The festival runs from 11am to 4pm. Odaiko New England will perform at 3:30pm. Admission and parking is free.
