Some of the miniatures at the Sogetsu 90th Anniversary Akane Teshigahara
Solo Exhibition "Hana So"

SOGETSU 90TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS

Hello all.

2017 is the Sogetsu school's 90th Anniversary, so, prior to the Ikebana International World Convention, a number of celebratory events were organised by Sogetsu headquarters. This was very convenient, as many of us, who would be attending the Convention, chose, also, to attend some or all of the events.

I arrived in Tokyo quite early on the 5th April and, after leaving my luggage at the reception of my hotel as it was too early to check in, I went for a walk and, without planning it, I ended up at Sogetsu headquarters. The scene below is what greeted me.

The left hand side of the entry to Sogetsu Kaikan

Bamboo and stainless steel at the right hand side

This was outside the headquarters building and, as impressive as that was, I was not prepared for what greeted me inside the Sogetsu Plaza. It was mind blowing!

Rectangular pieces of stainless steel (close-up below) in their thousands lined the walls and floors of the 'rock garden'. Ikebana arrangements, from miniatures to large installations in antique rickshaws, were placed all around the plaza. The effect was mesmerizing.

I took the photograph, below, from the second story, where I stood for some time absorbing the view. I felt I was in 'fairyland'.

The one draw-back was the inability to get clear photographs of the arrangements because of the reflective nature of the stainless steel. I will, however include some of them, in the order that I took them, from the entry at ground level to the top level.

In case you're wondering what this material is, it is the roots of
the up side down bamboo, all sprayed black.

An exquisite glass vase made, I'm told, by iemoto.

If you look very closely you will see the rickshaw with masses of
spring flowering branches

This is the second rickshaw, also with spring flowering branches

This was also an opportunity to run some training sessions for the new Book Five - Technique and Creation.

I attended one workshop run by Eikou Sumura sensei on the theme 'Composition Expressing a Movement', where we had to select a verb that described some movement and depict that in our arrangement. Below is my arrangement and my verb was 'Hiding'

I used aspidistra leaves and bromeliads 

I also attended an all day training session with a Special lecture by Iemoto as well as other videoed material. There was also a demonstration by Suisen Takagi sensei of ten arrangements of different themes from the new book. Unfortunately I am not able to post the pictures that I took because it was stated very clearly on the printed material that we were not to do so.

Bye for now,

Emily