Festival Asia 2015 Saturday

Fleur Estelle Dance School - http://www.fleurestelle.com/

Festival Asia debuted last weekend on 15-19th May at the upcoming event venue Tobacco Dock. After seeing vigorous marketing at tube station, on social media, Time Out, Evening Standard it was time to go and see what the event had to offer.

This was the first Eastern event I had attended covering the whole scope of Asian cultures in the UK. Cultures included: Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese and more

At 2pm signed up for the Calligraphy classes (free) from Magna (Mandarin Chinese Language in London) http://www.magnaedu.org/ Over 40 of us sqeezed into the room. Our teacher explained the strokes used and the names and how fine word or phrase in calligraphy can be sold for a much as 2 million pounds.
Starting from the correct hand grip to drawing dots to longer strokes we wet our brushes and practiced on different alphabet sheets.

http://www.taikowest.com/

Next we came across the Taiko West room where Master James showed two teas a simple routine. With a loose grip for strong flick actions we built up speed by bring the sticks closer tot he drumb and lowered the volume by lessening the wacks but at the same distance. Best thing is to look at his site for classes to understand properly. After a 30 minute session we were all in the mood to watch the Taiko collective on stage.

If you came to part with your money Festival Asia had some great exhibitors selling culural items from henna to cute anime inspired plushies. Here we have an array of Buddah and Hindu God statues for sale in an assortment of semi precious stones. List of all the sellers are here.

One of my favourite dessert stalls was hidden downstairs, anyone who is partial to a good Doriyaki knows Wagashi Bakery and who else was there as spoke woman but the owner of the UK distributions. Interview with Harue Taguchi.

For more photos go to my Album.

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Aisha Anime