Tea ceremony presentations, Asian Art Museum SF

[Saionji Shonagon]

Since Solveig-sensei mentioned tea, it occurred to me to mention that San Francisco's Asian Art Museum offers tea ceremony demonstrations by several schools to the general public and I have a free Saturday for the first time in AGES. This Saturday's programs (at 1:00 and 2:30 PM) will be presented by the Mushanokojisenke school.

www.asianart.org/teaceremony.htm

Bay Area peeps, I can get one other person in with me at the member price. If interested, get in touch with me ASAP and I will order tickets.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig! Be sure to tell everybody about it. That is the smallest of the three senkei schools. I don't recall ever participating in one of their demonstrations.

[Saionji Shonagon]

I know! I think everything I've attended previously has been Urasenke school.

I'll be sure to make a full report of my impressions.

[Saionji Shonagon]

This is the only photo I took and that was after the ceremony concluded. The ceremony performed was in memory of the late Peg Anderson, who studied Mushanokojisenke and Zen in the Bay area until her passing in 2000. (I have a handout with her bio on it. Of course it does NOT include the name of the American tea master who is currently the only one teaching on the West Coast and who narrated some of the proceedings this afternoon. Nor is his name on the canned hand-out of cursory Way of Tea info that the museum apparently uses for all its Cha-do presentations! And I was not going to break my attempt to shed the outside world by fumbling for a pen!)

The gentleman in question is currently the only Mushanokojisenke master teaching on the West Coast and he said there are a handful on the East Coast, which perhaps explains why it is not as well known in the states as the Urasenke and Omotesenke traditions.

I fear my limited experience with tea ceremony (and my seat in the second row at the far right) did not allow me to discern any great differences between Mushanokojisenke and other schools of tea, though the gentleman preparing tea for his guests did so in such a relaxed and natural manner that nothing seemed stiff or choreographed. The setting was simple, the utensils likewise, as far as I could see from where I sat. (It was mentioned that they had belonged to the late Ms. Anderson.) I was quite taken with the hanging scroll, depicting three rocks in calm water, or perhaps in a Zen garden.

The first bowl was mixed in the robin's egg blue bowl you see placed as an offering in the tokonoma along with a sweet for the lady in whose honor they dedicated this ceremony. Yokan (sweet jellies) and then individual bowls of fragrant, grassy usucha (thin tea) was served to those of us in the cheap seats by assistants in pretty summer kimono, while the host prepared two more bowls and served the First (Urasenke teacher in kimono AKA "ringer" who knew what to do) and Second (volunteer from the audience) Guests.

Tea ceremony conducted on a four mat "stage" while 20 people sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs, can't observe the preparation of tea beyond the first row or hear what First Guest says to Second Guest unless a host with a mike provides a play by play is, well, not really what a tea experience can be. It's not that our hosts were not congenial, or that the tea was not good, but that the nature of tea-ceremony-as-educational-program inevitably creates a distance that shouldn't be there.

www.flickr.com/photos/asianartmuseum/sets/72157625406262624/ shows some photos from the museum's photo pool of a previous tea demonstration. It should give you an idea of the layout.

Lessons are just not in this writer's budget and I confess my studies have been limited to what I have been able to read and those tea events I have been able to attend. What I understand, I understand imperfectly.

This past Estrella, Yaygu-dono and Li-dono insisted on escorting me back to my camp. It being a cold night and a long walk, I then insisted they make themselves comfortable on my "veranda" while I put some water on the stove and put some sencha into the strainer of my teapot. It wasn't ceremonial tea, but I had what I needed to make my guests welcome. I know I refilled the teapot at least once as we sat talking and drinking tea quietly under the desert stars. I hope Sen Rikyu would have understood.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

That scroll is gorgeous.

Tea ceremony conducted on a four mat "stage" while 20 people sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs, can't observe the preparation of tea beyond the first row or hear what First Guest says to Second Guest unless a host with a mike provides a play by play is, well, not really what a tea experience can be. It's not that our hosts were not congenial, or that the tea was not good, but that the nature of tea-ceremony-as-educational-program inevitably creates a distance that shouldn't be there.

I wonder if any "demonstration" of a traditional art like this can transcend this problem. I get the same feeling when watching martial arts demonstrations; yes, I see what you just did to your opponent, but I still don't know what it is like to either do it or have it done to me. The only way to really know is to be one of the participants. I guess that's what the lessons are for?

This past Estrella, Yaygu-dono and Li-dono insisted on escorting me back to my camp. It being a cold night and a long walk, I then insisted they make themselves comfortable on my "veranda" while I put some water on the stove and put some sencha into the strainer of my teapot. It wasn't ceremonial tea, but I had what I needed to make my guests welcome. I know I refilled the teapot at least once as we sat talking and drinking tea quietly under the desert stars. I hope Sen Rikyu would have understood.

I am quite certain that he would have.