The Uchiwa Light-Up Dance Fan workshops invite San Jose youth and adults to create their own interpretations of traditional Japanese festival dance fans with a bit of circuitry embedded. This modern take on the Uchiwa fan illuminates so that when people dance at dusk, the sweep of their hands are traced in the fan’s arc of light. These community workshops put a technology twist on a cultural tradition, and in doing so, aim to capture the spirit of Japantown and San Jose, today.
In a series of five workshops in the San Jose communities of Japantown and Alum Rock, participants will explore both their own visual vocabularies and that of Japanese culture as they design their own LED light-up Uchiwa fans. Using laser cut fan frames, copper tape, LED light circuit stickers and coin cell batteries, participants will create fans that celebrate the rich blending of cultures in San Jose.
Since four of the workshops will occur before San Jose Taiko's Japantown Immersive, they will serve as opportunities to connect, inform, and invite local youth of the upcoming event. The activity of making their own light up dance fan is a way to creatively invite youth to attend, regardless of their culture or where they live in San Jose. The canvas of the fan surface is their opportunity to create a pattern or design that represents personal culture and interests, a canvas which participants are invited to bring to the Japantown Immersive event and dance with while there.
The fifth workshop will be at Japantown Immersive and the workshop table will have youth assistants from both Japantown and Alum Rock.
Culturally focused paper circuitry projects out in public spaces can be valuable tools to build civic connections and public pride in the diversity of our communities. They can also be a way to bridge the past and present and increase equity in technology access across communities.
This Okada Design project is made possible through a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Grant and with fiscal sponsorship by Alum Rock Educational Foundation (AREF). Thank you to Chibitronics for their in-kind support. Thank you to San Jose Taiko for including this workshop in their Japantown Immersive event programming. Thank you to the San Jose Public Library, Burnett Middle School and the AREF for including these workshops in their programming.