The 29th annual Japanese Fall Festival is this weekend in Springfield. It’s hosted by the Springfield Sister Cities Association and celebrates Springfield’s relationship with its sister city in Japan – Isesaki.
The festival gets underway Friday evening and runs through Sunday at the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden at Nathanael Greene-Close Memorial Park, 2400 S. Scenic.
SCA executive director Lisa Bakerink said there’s a big lineup of authentic Japanese performers for the event. They’re headlining samurai this year — "Samurai Sword Soul, and they do theatrical samurai performances on stage," she said. And then we have a new group this year called Bentenya, and they are a Chindon street performance group, and they are following Route 66 through the United States and learning about that. We have some Japanese archery students from Tokyo. We have a family of taiko drummers in addition to the St. Louis Osuwa Taiko.
She said the family of taiko drummers – a father and three of his children -- is trying to do 1,000 performances in the U.S. before returning to Japan.
She said the Kizuna Friendship Group will be back this year and so will Yasu Ashida to emcee and do magic.
The festival will also feature vendors, food and retail. There will be a kids’ area and workshops related to Japanese art.
Admission Friday, September 5, and Sunday, September 7, is $9 for adults and $4 for kids 3 to 12. Admission Saturday, September 6, is $14 for adults and $4 for kids 3 to 12.
Bakerink said their vision is peace through people, and that's consistent with Sister Cities International, which they are part of.
"Back in '56 when that was established, it was a way to join communities through peace and prosperity and partnership and appreciate differences and understand just how similar we are," she said. "And, you know, we really do need that on a fundamental level."
"I think governments can mess things up," Bakerink said, "but people can be friends and have peace together."
