Leaf Shadows: Haiku and Music Performance

Off the wall reflections on the haiku-music performance.

After the introductions by Ambassador Ishikawa, on November 19th there was a haiku and music performance at the Japanese embassy put on with KaDo Ottawa. Musicians who did ekphrastic responses to the poems with many instruments from rattles and windchimes to blues guitar and harmonica. The poems were read in sequence in 3 acts, one for each chapter or chapbook with music reacting to or setting the mood for the next sequence.

On each ends are TA Carter and Guy Simser with music unfolding between poems.
It made an interplay and interconnections among poems by 15 different haikuists: Terry Ann Carter, Grant D Savage, Philomene Kocher, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Elena Calvo, Patrick Campbell, Sheila M Ross, Lana Holmes, Margot Gallant, Guy Simser, Pearl Pirie, Heather A MacDonald, Mike Montreuil, Melanie Noll and Betty Warrington Kearsley.

On either end are Heather MacDonald and Mike Montreuil as Debbie Danbrook and Catriona Sturton perform. Sturton looked as much at home with electric guitar and accordion as a traditional 3-string Japanese guitar singing bits of 1920s Japanese folk tunes.

Danbrook has over a dozen CDs of music, much with the Shakuhachi. She also played drum and other instruments.

The collection of haiku came in 2 shapes (or 4 depending on how you count). One was a stapled 8 1/2 x 11 with all the poems for $5, and the other in a hand-sewn artisan, hand made, (hand breathed upon) set of 3 chapbooks by themes for $20.


Sample of inside.
It was a relaxing night, much like the performance for Haiku North America interweaving poems and music, and well-attended with I’d guess somewhere around 110 people present.

The book table was active. The sheets at the end note that there will be a free exhibit on “The Way of the Brush: An exhibition of Sumi-e Painting and Calligraphy” Nov 25-28 at the Ottawa School of Art.
Coming December 7 at 7 p.m. at the Japanese embassy will be a lecture and film on Koji Yamamura: master of the form. RSVP thru the embassy at 241-8541.