August 15, early afternoon. I arrive by Shinkansen at Fukushima Station, where I rent a car and drive up to the main venue, "Shiki no Sato (Village of Four Seasons)". Once I get to the suburbs of Fukushima, all I see are fields of swaying green rice ears, equally green mountains, and a vast open sky. Here and there, sunflowers are planted in the rice paddies, the green and yellow colors of which create a dazzling contrast to the blue sky and white banks of clouds. The forecast high for today is 34 degrees centigrade. With the exception of the occasional roof covered with blue sheets probably because tiles had fallen down, it is a picture-perfect scenery of a Japanese summer just like any other.
Upon entering the venue in the forest amid the buzzing of cicadas, I spot people carrying guitars, tubas and djembes. Somewhere someone is singing. That’s the setting in which the "Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!" starts playing. The orchestra is made up of 200 members selected from the general public, along with 30 professional musicians. The venue heats up under a performance that exudes a distinctly festive mood. The audience is dancing along while drinking beer, eating soba and yakitori. It is a picture-perfect scenery of a Japanese summer music festival just like any other.
What is different is that countless patchwork style pieces of cloth are spread out on the grass in front of the stage. Some are ten meters square, others five, and again others of various smaller sizes. There are furoshiki (wrapping cloth), bath towels, handkerchiefs, scarves, hand towels… On some of them I see illustrations or written messages, others have the cartoon blurb style "Project FUKUSHIMA!" logo sewn on. All materials were donated for the project from all over the country. Artist Nakazaki Tohru and his "Fukushima Big Furoshiki" staff apparently spent days and nights in front of their sewing machines in order to finish in time for the festival.
One more difference is that there are signboards displayed for each type of food sold in a "warranty booth" across the street. The sign next to the peaches for example, a specialty product from Fukushima that is in season right now, reads, "The amount of cesium detected in the Fukushima-grown peaches sold at this booth is 23Bq/kg." (The temporary tolerable value announced by the Japanese government is 500Bq, while the Ministry of Health of Ukraine set the tolerable level at 70Bq). Vegetables are tagged with the same kind of information.
Following the set of the "Orchestra FUKUSHIMA!", a performance as one surely doesn't get to see it at other festivals kicks off. The "Fukushima Gundokudan 2011", headed by Wago Ryoichi, takes the stage for a collective poetry recital. Male and female members of all ages read, talk, shout in concert or one at a time. Without a doubt, everyone in the audience is moved by the chain poem that opens with the line, "Fukushima ni ikiru / Fukushima wo ikiru (Living in Fukushima / Living Fukushima)". Following are phrases like "Let’s tell it in our own words / let’s tell it as it is / let’s tell about Fukushima today / sincerely." I would say these lines alone communicate the entire idea behind the "Project FUKUSHIMA!", including this festival.
Appearing later on the festival’s three stages at two different venues are Endo Kenji, Nikaido Kazumi, Group Tamashii, Zuno Keisatsu, Haino Keiji + Nasuno Mitsuru + Ichiraku Yoshimitsu, The Stalin 246 and Shibusashirazu. Wago Ryoichi delivers an energetic recital of "Shi no Tsubute (Pebbles of Poetry)" to an improvised performance by Sakamoto Ryuichi and Otomo Yoshihide, and Dr. Kimura Shinzo offers a debriefing session on radioactivity.
What struck me most of all however was the "presence" of Rei Harakami. As you will know, Harakami, who was supposed to appear at the festival, had died unexpectedly of brain hemorrhage on 7/27. As Harakami looked perfectly fit at Kimura Shinzo’s lecture at NHK that he had attended only some ten days earlier, I guess I don't need to explain the festival staff’s bewilderment. Festival MC Otomo commented, "I believe Harakami-san is around here with us today," and presented together with Sakamoto (on melodica), U-zhaan and Katsui Yuji an ultra-loose rendition of YMO’s "Technopolis". Nanao Tavito teamed up with Harada Ikuko for a "special band" interpreting tracks from Harakami’s "Red Curb" album, as well as "Ai sansan" and other songs covered by Harakami. The performance was wrapped up with Nanao’s shouted introduction of the participating musicians, "Nanao Tavito, Katsui Yuji, U-zhaan, Harada Ikuko, Rei Harakami, Zak, Yeahhh!" It is natural to include Harakami’s name here because his tracks were used, but even so, many a visitor must be moved to tears by this announcement (for some songs the "special band" was joined by Mukai Shutoku and Ameya Norimizu). In addition and reversely to the disastrous existence of radiation, quite obviously there was something else that was warmly watching over the venue and all of Fukushima on this day.
As I was at the Shiki no Sato venue’s "Water Stage" all the time, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to check out the performances on the other stages, but the organizers reported about 13,000 visitors in total, and according to the "Dommune" Internet streaming service, the number of people following the event online simultaneously peaked at 6,541 - certainly enough to speak of a huge success. The thermometer didn't climb as high as expected, and with the rather lucky addition of an evening shower, the party ended without any heat stroke victims or other cases of illness. All in all it was a very pleasant festival with a high quality program, seasoned with the accumulated enthusiasm and good intentions of a lot of people.
However, all this didn't happen without problems. No-one was injured, but due to set-up mistakes, some performances had to be interrupted. As mentioned above, the booth selling specialty products was set up across the street from the main venue, so that many visitors didn't even notice that there was something offered for sale. I heard that there was some trouble here and there also backstage. I guess that all these things have to do with the lack of professionals helping with set-up, PR and production tasks. With the exception of local dealers, all performers and sound engineers participated at their own expenses, and numerous volunteers came to help from Fukushima and other prefectures. However, hosting a festival of this scale is a fairly difficult business without a sufficient number of professionals installed in pivotal points. There are more than a few issues to think about based on the outcome of this first installment, including also the question whether the festival should be admission-free.
The organizers are fully aware of this as well. As you can read also in an <interview with Otomo Yoshihide> (Japanese only), this time’s festival does not mark a goal, but only the beginning of a long battle. The radioactive materials that will remain are going to make the people in Fukushima and all over the country suffer also in the future. We are now required to strive to overcome the radiation damage, and work for decontamination and the nonproliferation of pollutants without turning our eyes away from this fact, and on the other hand, to prevent harmful rumors arising from misunderstandings. In order to not forget the nuclear accident, and continue to "tell about Fukushima today / sincerely" - in fact "tell about Japan today / sincerely", this festival must go on.
A sound framework is elemental for achieving this. I sincerely hope the "Festival FUKUSHIMA!" will steadily grow up to and beyond the next one or two editions.
(August 25, 2011)
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO