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Education Grantees 2018

Brooklyn Public Library Linda E. Johnson, Brooklyn, NY
Creative Aging
Project Director: Noella Scott
$ 4,280.00
The Brooklyn Public Library will present a series of art workshops on Japanese Art and Culture. They will provide arts based classes and learning opportunities for students interested in the fundamentals of art. This project will be led by Tomoko Amaki Abe covering components such as Japanese Calligraphy, tea ceremony, and Japanese story times.

Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, New York, NY
Bamboo Canvas: Instructional Innovation for a Globalized Classroom
Project Director: Sherry Brabham
$ 4,310.00
This will be a regional education conference that will be held at FIT in November. This education conference will incorporate traditional Japanese arts and culture. It will address innovation and practices for students studying East Asian Arts in today’s classrooms and FIT wants to feature Japanese Textile Master Hirokazu Okano to present to the audience both his historical and contemporary art forms.

Florida International University, Miami, Florida
Cool Japan @ FIU, 2019
Project Director: Atsuko Noguchi
$ 2,450.00
This event being held in Florida International University will provide Japanese cultural enrichments for the students through a variety of activities. This event Cool Japan will have activities such as performances by Matsuriza from Orlando, festival-like booths with games and workshops the students can engage and understand Japanese culture more in depth.

Japan Society of Boston, Inc., Boston, MA
Japanese Taiko Drum Performance
Project Director: Yuko Handa
$ 2,000.00
Japan Society of Boston will have this program to share the music of Japanese traditional taiko drums and Japanese folklore dance by the Tamagawa Taiko and dance group. The Tamagawa Taiko and dance group are committed to deepening the US-Japan friendship and they express that through their music and dance. Japan Society of Boston wants the people of Boston to experience this and have more interest in various Japanese art forms.

JapanFest, Inc., Atlanta, GA
JapanFest Atlanta 2018
Project Director: Alexandra Gellin
$ 3,000.00
Japan Fest Atlanta will have this Japan Fest to give the community of Alabama the opportunity to experience Japanese culture and the diversity of seasons in Japan. They plan on offering an array of performances and workshops. Some of the highlights they will touch upon are cuisine, activities, decorations, and performances. With the Japan Fest, they hope more people will understand and appreciate Japanese culture and the linkage between Japanese and Americans.

Memphis Botanic Garden, Memphis, TN
Folding Workshops
Project Director: Gina Harris
$ 5,000.00
This traveling exhibit hosted by Memphis Botanic Garden will contain seventeen museum quality origami structures placed throughout the garden. They plan to share and inspire guests the art of folding paper as well as myriad of current origami applications in the mathematic and STEM fields. With the help of world-class origami experts Michael LaFosse and Richard Alexander, the Memphis Botanic Garden hopes to spread Japanese appreciation in origami to the community.

Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Japanese Cultural Exchange through Voice Acting Workshops in Michigan
Project Director: Kate Simon/Katharine Anne Douglass-Harris
$ 4,060.00
Requesting $3,360 to host Japanese voice acting workshops for youth in the communities of Lansing and Kalamazoo in Michigan by inviting Mr. Kiyotake Ishii from Japan Visual Media Translation Company (JVTA). The expected outcomes include deeper understanding of Japanese culture among high school/college students through interactive workshops utilizing Japanese films and animations that are popular among youth. The event aims to address the limited knowledge of Japan among the people in MI and the multi-media event appears engaging for younger generation. Since there is a strong Japanese automobile industry in the region, the project managers hope this can increase the participants’ interests in potential career opportunities too. A JOI coordinator, Ms. Kana Morishita, is involved in this project.

Musical Bridges Across the World, Inc., San Antonio, TX
Rising Sun
Project Director: Anya Grokhovski
$ 5,000.00
Rising Sun will represent Japanese culture as part of MBAW’s 6th Annual International Music Festival, Musical Sprouts Program, and Golden Age Program. These programs share the goal of impacting children through music and art and they want to provide a place where seniors limited by their health can also come together to engage as well.

Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, PA
Hana Takehiro Japanese Dance and Calligraphy Performance
Project Director: Thomas Shillea
$ 4,390.00
This project will bring performing artist Hana Takehiro to conduct performances and workshops on Japanese calligraphy and traditional Japanese dance to the local area of Northampton Community College. His performances will introduce Japanese culture to the students and it may help to create possibilities for different cultural aesthetics.

Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese, New York, NY
Student Haiku 2006-2018 Anthology Publication for its Reception and Work Shop for New SDG’s format
Project Director: Masayo Ohyama
$ 3,700.00
NECTJ plans to hold a reception to celebrate and publish an anthology of winning student poems from 2006-2018 haiku contests hosted by Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese (NECTJ) and United Nations International School (UNIS). Outcomes include a reception on February 2nd and 3rd at UNIS in New York and a haiku workshop that incorporates the promotion of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The reception will be held for adults, where they are working with Japanese Permanent Mission of Japan to the UN to invite representatives from various haiku making countries including Sweden officials. The workshop targets students and their parents. After the events, haiku will be disseminated in multiple languages for the global audience.

Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT
Japan Week at the Southern Vermont Arts Center
Project Director: Robert Van Degna
$ 4,369.00
The Southern Vermont Arts Center will bring the community of Southwestern Vermont together for interactive activities and performances focused on Japanese traditional and current cultures. Some of them include Ikebana demonstration, kimono dress ups, cooking and cultural workshops, anime movies, and more.

The Brooklyn Nijinokakehashi Japanese Cultural Center, Brooklyn, NY
BNJCC Harumatsuri
Project Director: Ryotaro Kusumoto
$1,000.00
The Brooklyn Nijinokakehashi Japanese Cultural Center will have this project to provide an opportunity for the Brooklyn community to experience what a Japanese spring festival, harumatsuri is like. They plan to have events and workshops that involve students as well as families to help their experience. They hope to strengthen the community engagement through cultural education.

University at Albany Foundation, Albany, NY
San Jose Taiko
Project Director: Kim Engel
$3,000.00
The University at Albany Performing Arts Center will be helping out to host San Jose Taiko on their fall tour in the East Coast. San Jose Taiko will offer performances that create meaningful exchanges between artists and audiences. Their goal is to not only celebrate particular cultures, but to introduce different cultures to many others with different backgrounds.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Noh Theater and the West
Project Director: Marc Callahan
$ 4,440.00
This project the UNC department of music is hosting will collaborate with Carolina Asia Center to share and inspire students and the community of North Carolina the Noh which is traditional Japanese theater and dance. UNC aims to educate students on the cultural history of Japan as well as the techniques that are involved.

University of Texas San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
Taste of Japan: Japanese Food Series
Project Director: Erina Romanowich
$ 4,056.00
This will be a series of events related to Japanese food where their mission is to educate people in San Antonio about the Japanese food and its culture and tradition. There will be events such as movie screening on washoku, cooking classes, bento photo contest, obento lecture/contest, and teacher’s workshop for Japanese food.