Department of World Languages & Cultures
Amount Awarded: $4,980.00
Awarded for 2019-20
Title: Rakugo in Japanese Language Courses
This is a project to fund the integration of a 400 year old Japanese storytelling art form, called rakugo, into Japanese language courses at the University of Utah. Though not well known in the West, rakugo, with its comic, sit-down, monologue style, is still very popular in Japan. The proposal includes inviting a professional rakugo actor from Japan to perform for, and assist students to prepare, practice and perform in, a rakugo exhibition.
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This is a final note to inform you that the Rakugo event went very well thanks to the Dee grant’s enthusiastic support and encouragement.
Our students as well as Tozaburo Yanagiya (professional rakugo performer from Japan) did an excellent job, but more importantly your continuous inspiration was crucial to the success of the event.
The room (LNCO 1110) had about 90 seats, but as it turned out we had more than 130 people come to the event and all of us were so pleased to see such a huge audience. This event has offered educational and inspirational encouragements for students and community members to further study Japanese language and culture at the UU. Also, our department chair was there for the entire session even though it was held on Saturday.
We had two UU staff to come and video-tape the entire session.
I have attached several event related documents including
(1) Budget, which includes additional supports from Department of World Languages and Cultures and Asia Center
(2) Event information sheet
(3) Event final report (including students’ reports, video-taped web page, photos, and announcement sheet)
Thank you again so much for the Dee grant support and encouragement. Please let me know if you have any question about the Rakugo event.