Isfahan and Tehran to host Japanese cultural festival

TEHRAN,Jan.17(MNA) – Isfahan and Tehran will be hosting a Japanese cultural festival over the next few days to showcase the traditional art of Japan. Isfahan Museum of Contemporary Art will be the first location to display Japanese traditional art, martial arts and stage performances from January 8 to 20, First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy in Tehran Koichi Nakao told on Monday. The students studying at the girls’ art schools in Isfahan will also get a chance to learn origami during the festival, he added. Origami is the traditional Japanese art or technique of folding paper into a variety of decorative or representational forms, as of animals, mostly cranes, or flowers. The Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran will be hosting the event next from January 25 to 29, Nakao said, adding that the Fukushima earthquake, the reconstruction process, as well as the paintings created by children of quake-stricken regions will go on show in a photo exhibition. Kinichi Komano, Japan’s ambassador to Tehran also met with IAF Director Majid Sarsangi here on Monday where they talked about the different programs of the festival. The ambassador said that Iranian people were a great help to the people of quake-stricken regions of Japan and that the festival with its variety of programs aims to show gratitude to the people of Iran. He also said that a group of Japanese artists along with two Japanese artists who are in Paris will be attending the festival to display traditional paintings and calligraphy of Japan for the Iranian and Japanese visitors here. Sarsangi also said that the forum will probably be hosting a Japanese play next year, “We are also intending to establish a branch of the forum in Japan to produce joint programs.”