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From all the events organized by NAMI Foundation, I consider NAMI Airando – Japanese Festival on Słodova Island the most important of the year. The Festival was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus epidemic. In 2022, due to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the decision to organize the Festival was made very late.

In 2023, there was time to rethink the program and formula of the Festival. What are we striving for? What is this Festival supposed to be for us – organizers and volunteers? Finally the most important question – what should it be for the participants?

The most important goal of the Festival is the same as the goal of the Foundation – to develop contacts between Polish and Japanese people and, more broadly, between people from Western culture and people of Far Eastern culture through mutual learning and participation in spiritual, physical and material culture and joint action for the good of the community.

We have made it tradition to start NAMI Airando with march lead by Yosakoi dancers. Previously all the dancers were from Polish group called Sakuramai, but this time they were joined by other teams from four different countries. Right behind them followed members of the martial arts clubs in their practice clothes, as well as the Awa odori group, volunteers from traditional clothes pavilion dressed in original Japanese kimono and many more. Everyone dressed in some kind of traditional Japanese or Polish clothing were invited to join. This year our march gathered around eighty participants.

Just few month ago we have celebrated Nami Foundation 10th anniversary. Coincidentally, Sakuramai had the same anniversary this year. As a form of celebration this year we have a pleasure of hosting not one, but five Yosakoi teams. Beside Polish group, there were also: Yosakoi Hanamaru from Czech Republic, Byakuya Yosakoi from Sweden, Yuurin from Estonia and Ameagari Yosakoi from Hungary, All together there were forty Yosakoi dancers present on NAMI Airando. After the festival they meet at NAMI Foundation to celebrate together.
During this edition, after a few years break, we also hosted Kumo from Kobito Rakugogroup. Kobito Rakugo is the only rakugo group in Poland. Both members took their first step in this Japanese art of storytelling few years back during a workshop with Japanese masters, as part of different event organized by our foundation – Nihon no NAMI. Their fascination in this unique art have led them to creating their own Rakugo group and performing at many events around our country.

This year attraction on stage were organized in five segments. Each of them consisted of a set of performances – Yosakoi dance, Rakugo story and martial art presentation. This way, no matter at what hour did someone attend NAMI Airando, they could see the bit of everything. At the same time you could stay for the whole festival without getting bored, as each segment had different Rakugo story, as well as different Yosakoi group and martial art (including Kendo, Iaido, Karate and Aikido).

This year was also marked by creation of Nami Ren – the NAMI Foundation Awa odori team. The group was first taught the basic of the dance by Mr. Koyama and Mr. Murase, who were staying in Poland for few months as Japanese teachers. This edition of the festival served as Nami Ren debut.

The one stage attraction was concluded by wonderful joint dance by all the five Yosakoi group together.

However, our festival is not only about performances. As always, for the whole five hours numerous pavilions were available for the visitors. In this pavilion everyone could take a photo in a yukata, take part in a martial art workshops, see a small exhibition of bonsai trees, as well as get an advice about this art from Rafał Wodzicki, from Polish Bonsai Association. There were also numerous Japanese games to try. The pop culture zone was also prepared by Nami Azarashi – NAMI Foundation anime and manga club.
Kazumi Łoza, who have been associated with NAMI Foundation for few years already, was working in Japanese calligraphy pavilion where one could get chosen kanji character or their name in katakana written. As Mrs. Łoza have mentioned before, moving abroad sparked her new interested in Japanese culture, motivating her to practice Japanese arts such as calligraphy or origami more than before.

When writing about Awa odori group I have mentioned Japanese teachers in Poland. Another one of them, Mrs. Yukiko Tanaka, have been staying in the NAMI Foundation since May. Besides being an excellent language teacher Mrs. Tanaka also practice ikebana and Chado. She has conducted few tea ceremony workshops for members of our Ikigai Senior Club as well as for the students of our language school. This time Mrs. Tanaka presented an art of arranging flowers. Visitors had a chance to see how the compositions are prepared as well as admire a finished creation. In July we opened a kimono exhibition in Theatre Museum in Poland, that will be available for visitors till November. Mrs. Tanaka have made the exhibition more interesting by preparing ikebana arrangement to accompany traditional garments.

Of course, no festival would be complete without an array of food to choose from. As always, we tried to give people chance to try Japanese cuisine. Once again, Kame Japanese Bar helped provide true Japanese home cooking.

NAMI Airando was once again a great success. For all five hours most of the places in front of the stages were taken. Some people even started considering joining Yosakoi group after seeing them perform. This was a first time we had this many dance performances on NAMI Airando and I think this made the already cheerful atmosphere of the festival even livelier. I hope to be able to make our festival an annual meeting place for Yosakoi group from different countries. But our biggest success is, I think, bringing both Japanese people and Polish enthusiast of Japanese culture together to create this memorable event and share our knowledge and experiences.