A Special Lower School Assembly
Burke’s second, third and fourth grade students took part in a special assembly to introduce them to Japanese dance and koto music.
The assembly was a beautiful way to kick off their studies and preparation for this year’s Lower School spring concert focusing on music and dance of Japan. Second grade is the first year for the students to participate in the LS Spring Concert and past concerts have explored the music of Bali, Ghana, John Henry and the Transcontinental Railroad, Latin America, and Irish Music. Each year the girls are excited to learn what their focus will be and the final concert showcases all the students’ music skills, ensemble work and imagination.
Shoko Hikage is a koto (Japanese zither) player who resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she continues to pursue her music. She was joined by her mother, Yoshie Hikage, a retired kindergarten teacher, origami (art of folding paper) & ayatori (string storytelling) master, and traditional Japanese dancer. She lives in Akita prefecture in northern Japan. Ms. Hikage has appeared in a television program titled “Nihongo de asobo” or “Let’s play in Japanese” on the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation known as NHK, and from March 2011 to September 2011, she lived with two and half year-old twins, who were refugees of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. During that time she started to compose haiku, tanka poems and draw pictures to inform the world about children impacted by the disaster. She continues working on cultural exchange activities for the Great East Japan Earthquake victims at “Akita Baba no Ie” an organization that she and her son Takaaki Hikage founded.