Just finished Day 3 of 4 days of Tokyo workshops training future volunteers for the Niko Niko Taishi project in the ‘Our Space’ theater studio. The intention of the workshops is to train volunteers  as the project plans on bringing performances up to the Tohoku region through March of 2012.  Great energies and lots of humor circulating in the space today. Some of the participants are there for all 4 days, others for a few, as their schedules permit. Yesterday, the group included an opera singer, a clarinetist, a trumpeter, a number of clowns and a hula hooper. Quite the variety which is great as this will increase the diversity of the performances being brought up to the region. Today , the levels of levity and absurdity increased as people explored the idea of  building invisible pyramids of air using big plastic bags. What could that possibly look like? People sure came up with a nice variety of answers.

In the afternoon, we switched gears inviting members of the hooping community into the workshop.  After a session of investigating the humor possibilities of  circular objects, we dove into hula hoop making/decorating with the intention to them bring up to the Tohoku region next week.  Within two hours we had 29 hoops ready to go. No doubt  this will make  some  young people happy when we break them out for use in workshop activities. More to come tomorrow during our last day of Tokyo workshops before heading up north.