Singing Voices Create Harmony Across Borders (January.2002)

The 26th Wataboshi Music Festival Held
On August 5th, 2001, the 26th Wataboshi Music Festival was held at the International Hall of Nara Prefecture Cultural Hall, sponsored by Tanpopo- no- Kai. Tanpopo- no- Kai in Nara was established with the hope of helping to create a society where people with disabilities can live as individuals full of life and energy. Mothers of children with disabilities played the key role. In 1976 "Tanpopo-no-Ye (House of Tanpopo) Foundation" was established in order to build a service center to help people with disabilities live independently. Since then while running the center, the foundation has been working hard to create a community, where both disabled and non-disabled people can live together.

Everyone wishes to follow one's own dream in life. However, in reality people with disabilities face major obstacles everywhere in society. Hoping to overcome these barriers as much as possible, "Tanpopo-no-Ye" functions as a center to assist people with disabilities to live independently and implements projects to support their artistic and cultural activities as well as cultural exchange programs with people with disabilities in Asia.

One of such projects is the "Wataboshi Music Festival" which has been held in Nara City every summer since 1976. People with disabilities write "poems" on how they feel and what they think in their daily lives and volunteers write music for them. The songs created in this way are performed in the concert. The 26th concert was held in 2001.

Last year, 635 poems written by people with disabilities living all over Japan, were submitted for the competition. Ten of these poems were chosen after two days of intensive screening and the songs were performed on August 5th at Nara Prefecture's International Cultural Hall.

The songs were in various styles, such as rock and roll, Japanese enka, ballads, singing accompanied by a musical instrument, and so on. Some of the songs were performed only by the composers, while others were performed by both the composers and the disabled authors, together on the stage. The huge audience of about 1000 people was totally absorbed in the music. Kazuya Nakayama, who is deaf, wrote a poem hoping that people around the world would say "I Love You" to each other and that everyone would express their honest feeling to other people.

I Love You
We can tell everyone in the world
Even to people in different countries
Even to people with different colors
For we are all the same human beings
Let us tell our honest feelings
With our hands
I Love You

With the support of about 100 volunteers, the concert last summer was highly successful, since performers and audiences were united as one and sang together. In the opening a chorus group of 40 volunteers from young to old sang a wonderful song entitled: "Dream in 2000".

A teacher from a junior high school in Osaka participated in the concert together with 13 students. In this school students have been singing winning songs from the Wataboshi Music Festival at their own school festival for several years. In this way they have deepened their understanding and compassion for people with disabilities. One of the students commented with a smile, "The songs are rhythmical and make us happy when we sing." A woman who works as a care giver said, "I am not sure why, but I have wanted to be involved in this festival for a long time. Songs have the power to deeply touch our hearts."

Songs created for the Wataboshi Music Festival are also performed in "Wataboshi Concerts" held at more than 50 locations throughout Japan every year. Since 1991, the "Asia Wataboshi Music Festival" has been held every two years in various parts of Asia. In 2001, the area was expanded and the "Asia-Pacific Wataboshi Music Festival 2001" was held in Takao, Taiwan. In 2003, the Festival is going to be held in Brisbane, Australia.

Able Art Movement
The Tanpopo-no-Ye Foundation also supports self-expression and social independence of people with disabilities through creative activities other than music. "Wataboshi Story Tellers Contest" is an artistic contest started ten years ago. In this contest, people with disabilities can express the unique characteristics of their personality in a story telling competition. The contest seeks to encourage new ways of self-expression by people with disabilities.

Another movement, the "Able Art Movement" was also started in 1995. In this movement, artistic works created by people with disabilities are evaluated from a new point of view. Such activities by people with disabilities have previously been underestimated and they have not been able to play important roles in society. Therefore, Tanpopo-no-Ye has started to evaluate such arts properly and to support these activities more substantially. The key concept of this art movement is "self-expression, exchange and healing", expecting us who live in this modern era to recall something that we have lost or forgotten. To commemorate "Japan 2001", the "Able Art Exhibition in England" was held in three cities of the United Kingdom from July 2001 to February 2002. Through this exhibition, the diversity, brilliance and beauty of arts created by Japanese people with disabilities were introduced not only in Japan, but now also in England.

As people with disabilities express themselves more in all the diverse fields of artistic expression, art itself will be reborn. Besides we can also get much closer to the realization of a society where both disabled and non-disabled people can live together harmoniously. It is an excellent opportunity to create a new society and a new culture.