Past Events
Sake Tasting Festival
We held our first “Sake Tasting Festival” from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM on Friday November 9, 2007 at the Alice Hardie Stevens Center in Laramie. About 40 people participated. At the beginning of the event, Ken Matsuno, president of JASWY, made a short introduction about the history of sake (rice wine), how it is consumed and stored, and kinds of sake. Then we made a toast, saying “Kampai” (cheers!) in Japanese. We served three kinds of sake, sushi rolls, edamame (green peas), takuwan (radish) and rakkyo (sweet scallion). We also did a silent auction on a framed Mt. Fuji picture, a beautiful scroll, a computer mouse pad, and sake sets including sake.
Images of Japan
We held our first “Slide Show on Japan” from 7-8 PM on October 25th, 2007 at the Albany County Public Library. About 20 people attended. Three board members, Masahiro Yamamoto, Klaus Hanson and Janice Harris presented beautiful and culturally interesting pictures they took in Japan. We got good compliments not only on the slide show but also on the punch Tawnya Plumb, another board member, prepared for the event. We may repeat the same or similar show at the Eppson senior center in Laramie.
Festival of Japan
We held the 2nd Festival of Japan on September 15 (Sat), 2007 at Laramie High School. This event was co-sponsored by the Laramie International club and the Consulate-General of Japan at Denver.
Just like last year, from noon to 1:45 PM we had a street fair in the cafeteria, where we exhibited Calligraphy, Origami, Chopsticks demonstration, Kimono wearing demonstration, Ikebana (arranged flowers), raffle, Japanese cultural artifacts and local clubs (Go club and Kendo club). We sold Japanese food and drink, such as sushi, a sweet bean rice cake called “Daifuku”, rice crackers and green tea, and also sold the event T-shirts and JASWY T-shirts. The highlight of the street fair was a kimono demonstration directed by Ms. Janice Harris. It drew a big crowd and was well received.
From 2:00 to 4:00 PM we had performances in the auditorium. First we had Koto performances. Ms. Junko Shigeta, her two students from Denver and a flutist from Boulder played beautiful Japanese music for 30 minutes. Next we had Laramie Kempo Karate performances led by Amber Travsky for 25 minutes. She brought 17 students onto the stage, ages about 5 to 25 years old. They demonstrated their kata (forms of karate) beautifully. The boys and girls looked very cute. After a 10 minute intermission, we had Taiko performances. The Hibiki taiko group (5 members) from Boulder, Colorado, played not only taiko, but also shakuhachi (bamboo flute) for 60 minutes.
Overall everything went well and everybody enjoyed the whole event.
JASWY
held its first
JASWY
held the first
Sushi Chef,
Other types of sushi
JASWY
held the first Festival of Japan
at the
Laramie High School in Laramie, Wyoming on
September 9, 2006.
More than 500 people came to see the event. We had workshops for chopsticks,
origami (paper folding), calligraphy and raffle ticket items (Ikebana and
sand garden) and sold some Japanese food such as sushi, green tea, rice
crackers and rice cakes. In the auditorium, we had Japanese dance, Kendo
(sword performance) and Denver Taiko drummers.
JASWY held its inaugural event, a special Japanese flower arranging (ikebana) and tea ceremony (cha no yu) workshop, at the Albany County Public Library meeting room, from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 6th, 2006.
Tomoaki and Fusako Kishigami of Nishinomiya City, Hyogo, Japan conducted the workshop. The Kishigami’s are experienced teachers who run a Japanese culture school in their home city.
(from left, Fusako Kishigami, Tomoaki Kishigami, Dee, Janice, Tawnya. Sitting in front row, Ken)
Mr. Kishigami is demonstrating a basic style of "Misho-ryu" flower arrangement.
Mrs. Kishigami is showing a basic method for traditional Japanese tea ceremony (Urasenke).
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Ikebana class held Tuesday, May 9th Work of student Carrie Groathouse |
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Ikebana class held Tuesday, April 18th Work of student Sylvia Wear |