Festival of Japanese art in Khabarovsk

A festival of Japanese art opened in Russia's largest Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk on Saturday. The event is part of a larger festival called Russian-Japanese Cultural Links in the 21st Century and Festivals of Japanese Culture in Russia in 2003.

More than 100 artists from Tokyo, Niigata /Khabarovsk's twin city/ and Aomori Prefecture will appear in 11 concerts and shows on the city's open venues, in the concert hall of the territorial Philharmonic Society, and in culture houses.

"The idea of the festival came up during Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin," said Yamasaki Takahiro, Vice Consul of the Japanese Consulate General in Khabarovsk.

The program of the festival envisages a seminar of folklore art called The Forming of the Variegation of Forms of Life and Harmonic Coexistence with Nature in East Asia. Participants will display the art of reciting of Ainu, a people inhabiting the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the Dance of the Bird and the Dance of the Lion, and perform a concert for the residents of Sikachi-Alyan, a village inhabited by Nanais, one of the scantiest peoples of the Amur area.