Farewell Greenhouse, Dance of Shiva in Izu

Thanks so much to my host of the last month, Chris Case, a wonderful man and a good friend. Having had only one concert in May, I had a lot of spare time to fill and The Greenhouse was a great place to spend it. Lots of gardening, visits to onsens, late night philosophical discussions and documentaries and a fair bit of time on the internet too (please visit my new website!).

The Greenhouse - farewell to my home of the last month...

Chris and I drove along with friends Azusa and Mari to the Dance of Shiva event in Izu. I was really excited about this drive because the route looped right around Mount Fuji. I'd have a photo for you here except that Fuji-san was completely shrouded in clouds - pretty usual apparently. The peak poked out for about 10 minutes at one stage. Anyway, I can say that it's bloody big and conical.

Dance of Shiva : Takashi Kougo (esraj) and Junzo Tateiwa (tabla)

Setsuo "Jimi" Miyashita (santoor) and U-K-O Segawa (tabla)

Taro Terahara (bansuri) and Shen Flindell (tabla)

Koro Ito (sitar) and Dinesh Chandra (tabla)

The folks dancing on the final morning of Dance of Shiva

I've just gotten back to Taro's place after the weekend in Izu, a peninsula several hours south-west of Tokyo where Taro & I were performing at the descriptively titled "Dance of Shiva: Travel of Indian mind effect music" party, held in a remote camping ground high up in the mountains of west Izu. It was a fantastic event - combination mini-Sangeet Mela and Indian-influenced trance party. There were four pairs of Indian classical music performers (photos and names above), which made for quite a festive gathering at our cottage, and some very nice DJs. I've been to a few bush dance parties in Australia but this was my first in Japan. There was a lot more ambient and mellow music over the 2 days of this party than comparable events in Australia - much more my cup of tea.

After the event a band of us including Taro, Yuriko, tabla player UKO Segawa and wacky Indian music freak Akira (from Kyushu), visited a lovely little onsen perched on cliffs above the bay, dined on some delicious seafood bukkake and then took the long drive back to Tokyo in time to catch a tabla solo by the amazing U-Zhaan (Hiro Yuzawa), easily the best non-Indian tabla player I've ever witnessed.

I'm now resting up at Taro & Yuriko's place and enjoying a few days without gardening. :-)
Unlike May, June and July are looking really busy for me. Taro & I play at Otoya-Kintoki this Friday and then on Saturday I'll be jumping on the shinkansen (bullet train) for Osaka to play 2 concerts in one night with Mr. Action Sitar, Tadao Ishihama. Then June 16 in countryside Kyoto, followed by 13 concerts in 22 days starting from my birthday gig on June 23 in Kyoto. Please visit my new events page for details.

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