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<\/a><\/p>\nRecycling: Washi Tales uses live performance to enliven human stories contained in sheet of \u201cwashi\u201d (Japanese handmade paper) as it is recycled through time. Four tales of paper making from different periods of Japanese history unfold on stage with an extraordinary ensemble of performers and musicians, in a world created by distinguished paper artist, Kyoko Ibe. The Papermaker serves as narrator and guide as she creates something new from what she learns of the old. Washi Tales explores aesthetic and spiritual values of recycling, beyond practical environmental concerns, into the realms of history and the imagination.<\/p>\n
Tale 1: \u201cNajio River\u201d is a legend from the Edo period, which tells of a papermaker and her daughter who embark on a journey from their village, Echizen, to find the papermaker\u2019s disappeared husband.<\/p>\n
Tale 2: \u201cSen no Rikyu\u201d tells the tale of a16th century tea master to the powerful Shogun Hideyoshi, who designs a tea house with recycled paper walls.
\nTale 3: \u201cHogosho\u201d (scrap paper) springs from Kyoko Ibe\u2019s most recent work, a series of panels incorporating hand written documents from a 19th century village in Northern Japan including tax records, deeds, lists of wedding gifts, instructions for building a temple.
\nTale 4: \u201cFujiwara Tamiko\u201d is about the 9th-Century Emperor Seiwa\u2019s beloved consort. Upon his death she recycles love letters and poems he wrote her to make paper on which she writes sutras for his soul\u2019s peace.<\/p>\n