Often, when I change the sheets of the bed, I listen to the sound of the fabric as it flaps and rises into the air, as I brush the creases out with my hands and tuck it under the mattress. Then, the drumming and plumping of the pillows, the wrestling and shaking of the duvet into its cover. It is an old dance, this one. We’ve all done it. The smell of soap and softener. The agitated air. Dust particles in the light. I change my daughters bed sheets, too, moving her soft toys out of the way then lining them up again, her favourite ones by the pillow, the rest at the foot of the bed. I hand wash the hand-dyed clothes I wear from Kiraku, turning the cold water deep blue, wringing them out and hanging them to drip dry. Then there’s the dustpan and brush, because the hoover doesn’t really work anymore. I enjoy the simplicity of it all, and try to be with all of these actions, and nowhere else, which isn’t always easy. I do the same when playing the flute.

These rituals of the home place my hands into those of my mother, grandmother and beyond. I remember watching it happen around me when I was small and unable to participate, like with the stove in the kitchen. I always played ‘home’ and took it seriously, preparing bowls of dry pasta for my family to pretend to eat. Later, I had my own kettle with bags of smokey Lapsang Souchong and sweetened Ginseng tea in my teenage bedroom, where I read books and performed my own naive tea ceremonies alone in rural England. We are bound by these transformative acts, gestures that echo through generations of home makers, across time, space, culture and language.

I can understand why the broom would be the witch’s choice for flying instrument. I think of flying because I am flying as I write this to Luxembourg to perform as Zashiki Warashi with Akinori Fujimoto. We met at dawn today like ancestral brothers at the airport. We share a suitcase filled with costume that we have ironed and folded at our respective homes, leaving for our journey while our families sleep. It is my flute and Aki’s drums that fly us into new places, real and imagined. As we play, we transport ourselves and audiences together.

And, as with changing the sheets, we leave the air shaken, some dusty clouds dissipated. We are doing the housework, home-making, and taking care of what is important to us, as people always have, and always will. Using what we have to hand, we cast our spells and ride our witch’s broom into the vast skies, continuing to shake the sheets, preparing for a new day, no matter how turbulent the times.

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This was written by Mikey Kirkpatrick on Wednesday 20th November 2024 en-route to Luxembourg to perform at the Rainy Days Festival.

On 7th September 2024, Zashiki Warashi performed at the first Obon festival including a Bon Odori dance celebration in Vilnius, Lithuania, organised by our dear friend, Ayano Honda with Gabija Vosyliute & Indré Beinarté of Asian Arts Centre Vilnius, and Haruka Seto, Agne Andriuskaite, and Sachiyo Watanabe of the Japanese Embassy. The event took place on the beautiful grounds of the House of Histories - the National Museum of Lithuania. We performed Ichiban Daiko, Komoriuta (Lullaby), Seiten and Shogun, and ran a workshop, demonstrating our instruments and talking about the pieces we played, as well as giving the audience a chance to learn a Bon Dance rhythm, and play the taiko, guided by Aki, and accompanied by Mikey on the Shinobue flute.

Ayano Honda, who is from Japan but lives in Vilnius, saw that the All Soul’s Day celebrations in Vilnius resonated with the 500 year old Japanese Obon tradition, a day when people honour the spirits of their ancestors. The Bon Odori, or Bon Dance, is a circle dance that takes place around a stage where musicians perform famous Bon Dance music (such as Tokyo Ondo) while a dancer demonstrates the movements, which is what happened at Vilnius’ first ever Bon Odori. Ayano taught the dances at a workshop during the day. A full crowd came to the festival (nearly 3000 people throughout the day) and many joined the circle dance, or danced on the spot while watching from the sides. We also premiered Ratiliondo, an original Bon Dance piece that we composed especially for the occasion, inspired by the Bon Odori custom along with traditional Lithuanian vocal folk music. Ayano choreographed a dance for the piece, movements that symbolise work (cutting grass), the passing of time, dancing, and passing its values down through generations.

Performing this piece with many dancers circling the stage was a very special moment, which was followed by an overwhelmingly beautiful scene of everyone holding hands at Okuribi ceremony for which we played our instruments to send the spirits of our ancestors off. The Japanese Ambassador of Lithuania, Mr Tetsu Ozaki joined the celebration and gave a speech, and also led the closing Sanbon-jime, a rhythmic clapping that everyone traditionally performs together in Japan to mark the closing of special celebrations and ceremonies. Rasa, who hosted the evening’s celebration, told the crowd “see you next year”, and judging by the success of the festival, we feel confident that Vilnius’ Obon Festival will happen again in 2025. Thank you to everyone who made the event possible, and a special thanks to Pavel who did an incredible job with the sound, and to Ayano for inviting Zashiki Warashi to be part of this beautiful event. We hope that people will dancing to Ratiliondo for the next 500 years!

All photos by Agnė Kanapienytė.

On 16th March 2024 many of you came and filled up The Old Church, Hackney, London, for our show 'The Rainmaker'. The Old Church, Hackney is the only surviving Elizabethan church in London. It has a beautiful acoustic and atmosphere, one that gave us great pleasure to conjure up the sounds of our show, casting shadows across the old stone walls so that all of us there that night have become part of the church’s story. Regardless of our beliefs, a place of prayer is a space for bridging over from what we can see to what we can’t, a call through the mist for some help, some care, some support from the other side, or to show gratitude to that which is bigger than us. Our music, and this show, is inspired by our histories and mythologies, old and recent, both real and imagined, from the Celtic Druids and ancient Shintos, and the world we create with our melodies, rhythms and songs. The video above is a stop motion photo animation video made by Chiara Ambrosio, who also took the photos that you see on this post, featuring live audio from that night of our piece 'Hessy', a wonderful memory of the night and a glimpse into the mood of 'The Rainmaker' show.

Something happened that night. There was a chemistry. The show sold out, the congregation was full, and we played and sang out to the other side. We saw the church transform. All of us became mountains, sea, forest, earth and sky. It was a voyage, from building the stage and setting up our taiko and flutes, right through to speaking with many of you after the show, packing up the chairs and closing the church door again, leaving our music, our presences, yours included, soaring out into the cosmos, recorded in those Elizabethan bricks.

Thank you to Deirdre at The Old Church for making it possible. Thank you to Chiara for taking the pictures and making this film to remember the night, to Nao for the lights, and to Alma Luz for recording the announcement for the beginning of the show as Zashiki Warashi. And most of all, thank you all for coming. We look forward to seeing you at the next show.

We have a few new YouTube videos coming for you and the first one is now uploaded.

Our latest composition "Seiten" live at Yokimono Japanese Christmas Market back in December 2023, filmed by Azulible. We started off playing here with Ichiban Daiko, which is a short drumming traditionally played early mornings to let people know that the Kabuki Theatre show is on today. The rhythm used here, "don don don to koi" in Japanese language, is a phrase that encourages people to come. We like to start off with Ichiban Daiko to encourage people to come, inviting people in for those events.

Playing at Yokimono Japanese Christmas Market at the Factory in Dalston, London is becoming a lovely tradition for us. As usual, the place was packed with full of people enjoying the food stalls and shops at the market and we had a great time performing 2 short sets for the people there.

Thanks to Sonoe from Furuki Yokimono vintage Kimono store for inviting us again.

16th March 2024 7pm at The Old Church Stoke Newington Get your tickets here

The Rainmaker: Building a Stage, Building a World 16th March at TThe Old Church Hackney

I remember seeing Stop Making Sense, the film by Talking Heads, when I was 18 years old. My collaborator and friend Jeremy Creighton Herbert showed it to me, and it was the final nail in the coffin of a ‘normal’ life for me. Like John Giorno says in his poem Thanx 4 Nothing, “Thanks for allowing me that to be a poet; doomed, but the only choice”. I knew I wanted to do that: build the world I envisioned through music and performance. In the film, David Byrne walks onto the stage with a guitar and tape player. He hits play and plays an acoustic version of Psycho Killer. Song by song, the stage is built, new musicians join the show. It transforms from warehouse to theatre: standing lamps appear, shadows are created with a handheld spotlight, he dons his giant suit… and here I am doing just that, building a stage, building a world, with Akinori Fujimoto, a friend who I met a year later after I started my music degree and journey into a life of listening and musicking in London and beyond.

The Old Church in Stoke Newington really is old. The first record of a church being on its site is 1314, and the version of the church we now stand inside was competed in 1563, funded by Sir William Patten, Lord of the Manor. It has been through a couple of new spires and lots of repairs, and needed some TLC after the blitz in 1940. This church is a community arts venue, a place for prayer and people. In Japan, shrines can be found anywhere, in temples, but also in nature. The church sits on the edge of Clissold Park, surrounded by trees and water, and with our drums and flutes laid out across the space, it has an ancient, shrine like feel.

The place is a portal; you step in from the busy street into a peaceful place, another time. The acoustics are warm, the church loves music, and dressing up, too. On the 16th March at 7pm, she will become a temple of sorts, adorned with light and sound from a world that exists between the drum and flute sounds that Aki and I create, music we have written; sounds we have heard somewhere in our imaginations and pulled down into our instruments - our vision of a world that exists musically, in harmony with the land, animals, spirits and weather.

The Rainmaker is a mago, a musician of matter who keeps everything in balance. The rainmaker exists in this world, and in the world of Zashiki Warashi. Like falling asleep to the sound of rain, and finding it is raining in your dreams; water has spirit, it is spirit, and it’s no surprise that sound moves in a similar way to water.

Do you dream of sound? Listen the next time you are dreaming. You might hear the sound of a flute or a distant drum, or the rumble of thunder as the air prepares to clear and let the sun through again.

Join us in our fields and oceans of music and dance, light and story. Music to call the rain. A dance of friendship. Light to guide our way. A story to prolong the day just a little longer…

Mikey

‘The Rainmaker’ is Zashiki Warashi's first full-length theatrical concert; through song, movement, storytelling and ritual you will be transported into a place that bridges the visible and the invisible, a mystical world of magic and imagination.

Enter Zashiki Warashi's enchanted world and experience the magic...

This performance will take place in the beautiful atmosphere and acoustics of one of London's oldest churches: The Old Church Stoke Newington. The show is approximately 2 hours with a short interval, and there is a bar at the venue with a range of refreshments available.

FREE ENTRY for under 16s but they must be accompanied by a paying adult. (Note: limited to 2 free under 16s entries per adult)

Get Your Tickets here