On Friday, 14 July, the British Museum’s exhibition Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave, supported by Mitsubishi Corporation, was celebrated with The road to Fuji: celebrating Hokusai, a special event presented in collaboration with Japan House London.
It was an evening of performances and activities honouring the life, art and enduring legacy of Katsushika Hokusai, one of Japan’s greatest artists.
The British Museum’s Hokusai exhibition has proven extremely popular since opening on 25 May 2017. The special late night opening event on 14 July was attended by over 2,000 people.
“The British Museum was delighted to collaborate with Japan House London on this brilliantly successful event.
Japan House London made the evening an immersive and dynamic Japanese experience at the Museum by providing a specially-designed sake tasting bar, an exclusive film screening about a lost Hokusai masterpiece, and through arranging for a group of chindonya musicians to visit especially from Japan to enliven the Great Court with music and performance.
This was highly enjoyable and successful collaboration, and the Museum hopes very much that we will have the opportunity to work with Japan House London again in the future,” said Freddie MATTHEWS, Head of Adult Programmes, British Museum.
Japan House London also hosted a pop-up sake bar in the British Museum’s Great Court. Sake experts introduced three different sakes, from three different regions of Japan – Miyagi, Hyogo and Nara. Fashion Designer Kansai YAMAMOTO was amongst the visitors who enjoyed the educational sake experience.
Other entertainment on the evening included – performances by Tsugaru shamisen player ICHIKAWA Hibiki and folk singer MOCHIZUKI Akari, as well as a performance of Ryan PROBERT’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by English acoustic guitar duo Vickers-Bovey, inspired by Hokusai’s prints.
The evening also included themed craft workshops, a community-led performance by seniors from Camden, and film screenings of the NHK production The Lost Hokusai (2017) and Power House production Ting Dong (2012), a short film about chindonya.
Tsukishima Chindonya from Tokyo performed in the Great Court, in the Galleries surrounded by world treasures including the Parthenon Sculptures, and also outside in the Museum forecourt. Chindonya musical street entertainers were chosen for the event as they would have been familiar in Hokusai’s late Edo-period Japan. Employed to advertise shop sales and theatre performances, chindonya dress in colourful kimono and parade the streets playing music. One member wittily shouts out to the crowd and hands out flyers. On this occasion they were publicizing that Japan House is coming to London.
Tsukishima Chindonya performed along the River Thames over the weekend of Saturday, 15 and Sunday, 16 July to further promote Japan House coming to London. People were surprised and delighted to see chindonya performing with the backdrop of iconic London landmarks such as Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s and the Houses of Parliament. Many people shared photos of the chindonya on social media and were excited to hear that Japan House will be opening in London.