Kamishibai stories of disaster

March 4, 2015

Fukushima evacuees to tell their stories through picture boards at Tokyo event

Yoshihiro Ozawa, pictured here in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, tells stories of his hometown, a no-go zone in Fukushima, through the "kamishibai" storytelling art form. (Mainichi)

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20150304p2a00m0et017000c.html

A group of Fukushima Prefecture residents who are still living away from their homes as a result of the March 2011 nuclear disaster will tell their stories through "kamishibai" -- a storytelling technique using large pictures and verbal narration -- at an event this month in Tokyo. Their goal: to prevent their experiences and ongoing hardships from being forgotten.

Titled "Fukushima Hisaichi Machi Monogatari Tokyo 7 Days" (literally Fukushima disaster area community stories Tokyo 7 days), the event will feature seven kamishibai performances across four days. Among the performers will be a group based in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, whose members are victims of the ongoing nuclear disaster intent on keeping stories about their hometown of Namie, near the stricken nuclear plant, alive.

Yoshihiro Ozawa, 69, who was living in temporary housing in Koori after fleeing his home in Namie, founded the group in April 2014.

The impetus for organizing the group goes back to the spring of 2012, when a Hiroshima citizens' group called Machi Monogatari Seisaku Iinkai (Committee for community story production), which aims to invigorate communities through kamishibai, approached residents at the temporary housing facility. The Hiroshima group said it wanted to recreate an essay written by one of the housing facility's female residents in the traditional storytelling art form of kamishibai. Ozawa, who was the housing facility's community leader at the time, helped to arrange the project. The group went on to also make kamishibai from Namie's folk tales, which eventually led to the founding of a kamishibai performance group centered on Ozawa.

Members of the newly founded group were all volunteers trying to preserve Namie's community bonds by performing kamishibai for the town's residents, who were scattered across the prefecture. Their performances enjoyed a good reputation and the group was soon invited to tell their stories in other prefectures such as Miyagi and Wakayama.

Wherever the group went to perform, Ozawa found that he was asked by audience members whether decontamination work had been completed in Namie, and how much longer he expected to stay in temporary housing. In fact, radiation levels are still high in much of Namie, which for the most part has been designated a "difficult-to-return" zone.

"People are starting to forget the reality that those of us who want to return to our homes are still unable to do so," lamented Ozawa. Meanwhile, the Hiroshima-based organization had begun to feel growing unease that the situation in Fukushima was fading in the minds of the general public. The concern of the Hiroshima group, which organized the upcoming event, synchronized with the angst felt by Ozawa and his fellow evacuees.

Kamishibai performed at the event will be set in a variety of areas in Fukushima Prefecture, and will involve the participation of groups comprising 2011 disaster victims in addition to Ozawa's. They will tell the stories of the aforementioned essay by a female evacuee, the town of Okuma when the troubled nuclear plant was first built there, and the efforts being made by the city of Iwaki to rebuild from tsunami damage.

The event will be held at the Rodo Kinko Kaikan building in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. There will be two performances each on March 7, 8 and 14, and one performance on March 15. Admission is 500 yen per performance. For more information, contact Machi Monogatari Seisaku Iinkai at 070-5527-3661 (in Japanese only).

March 04, 2015(Mainichi Japan)