The Far East can be found right here in Albuquerque.
Aki Matsuri, the Japanese fall festival sponsored by the New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League is this Sunday at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
The NM JACL, a civil rights and education organization, hosts Aki Matsuri every year to teach and share Japanese culture with the community, said Calvin Kobayashi, NM JACL treasurer. The festival simultaneously entertains and helps preserve Japanese culture.
The festival features Okinawa dancing, Taiko drumming and singing.
There are also martial arts demonstrations, including kendo, judo and karate, as well as weapons demonstrations.
Past themes have included anime, calligraphy and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. This year’s theme is kabuki, which is a highly stylized Japanese dance drama that dates back to the 17th century, Kobayashi said.
In kabuki theater, the actors wear heavy makeup or masks, and men play both male and female roles. The costumes are elaborate and oversized. Keeping in line with that theme, the festival will be showing a traditional kabuki film from Japan with English subtitles and narration.
Esther Churchwell, NM JACL board member, said that in addition to cultural sharing, Aki Matsuri allows attendees to get a better idea of Japan’s history. Although there isn’t a large Japanese population in New Mexico, it has a history of which many people may not be aware, Churchwell said.
“There was an internment camp in Santa Fe during World War II,” she said. “For years, the Santa Fe Council did not want to recognize that because it was right in the middle of their community.”
But there was a sort of dichotomy in the Japanese experience in New Mexico, Churchwell said.
Gallup was one of the towns in New Mexico that voted not to send the Japanese to internment camps, she said.
“We are very much concerned about the civil and human rights of everyone, not only Japanese Americans, and that’s because of what happened to the Japanese Americans during World War II,” Churchwell said.
Kobayashi said the NM JACL also has a long-term goal of creating a Japanese Cultural Center, similar to the National Hispanic Cultural Center where the Aki Matsuri will be held this year.
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The event serves as a fundraiser for the effort to build that cultural center, which would include a museum, a library and a theater, along with other restaurants and businesses.
Aki Matsuri
Sunday
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
$5
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 Fourth Street S.W.
nmjacl.org
