FESTIVE FUNDRAISER. Oya No Kai, the parent group of the Japanese Magnet Program (JMP) at Portland Public Schools, held a fundraising art auction earlier this month. The event featured (clockwise from top left) a performance by En Taiko, a dance by JMP interns, a live art performance by Tokyo-born artist Taka Sudo, and more. (Photos/Micah Kassell & Gretchen Brooks, courtesy of Oya No Kai)

From The Asian Reporter, V21, #06 (March 21, 2011), page 10.

By Sarah Eadie

The Asian Reporter

Being a child in Portland must be incredible. There are parks everywhere, a nickel arcade that doubles as a movie theater, and, for the more precocious youngster, there is the Richmond Japanese Immersion School.

Richmond began its Japanese immersion program in 1989 and has since gone on to win numerous awards for its outstanding curriculum. Students at the school spend half the day studying in English and the other half studying in Japanese with the ultimate goal of producing students fluent in both languages. Japanese interns help expedite the process. In exchange for help in the classroom, interns are provided with a homestay and lunch on school days as well as various education and transportation opportunities.

Providing first-rate international education is not cheap. Oya No Kai, the parent group of the Japanese Magnet Program at Portland Public Schools (including Richmond), is responsible for financially supporting the intern program and a variety of other programs, including the fifth grade cultural exchange and eighth grade research residency. Earlier this month, Oya No Kai held an art auction.

The event was held at The Plant, a hip warehouse space in inner southeast Portland with two long rooms that quickly filled with attendees. Organizers stoked the generosity of the bidders in the live and silent auctions with delicious sushi appetizers and music by DJ Kez as more people poured in. Attendees slowly made their way into the cavernous downstairs — a room compared by numerous guests to the inside of Noah’s Ark.

The space was dominated by a large stage with rows of seats and more auction items. Student artwork sat on long tables propped against the walls. The collective effort of the fourth graders was "Portlandia — We Put Birds on Things," a decoupage of Japanese-style newsprint birds perched on cherry tree branches on a canvass of birch wood; it was a fan favorite.

In the far left corner of the space, Tokyo-born artist Taka Sudo stood on a raised platform meticulously applying paint to three canvassed panels as part of a live art performance. Looking at a finished Sudo piece, one might erroneously assume the artist’s painting process is messy and visceral. To the contrary, during the live performance Sudo worked quickly and expertly with careful attention to each detail — the twinkle in an elephant’s eye or the grooved curve of a ram’s horn. Bidders were given a choice of taking one of the panels home or taking all three panels for three times the bid price.

Meanwhile, the stage alternated between bursts of live entertainment and the madness of the live auction as Japanese Magnet Program parents Kari Shawen and Kristina Kallen worked to keep everyone on schedule.

En Taiko, a Portland-based drumming group, played first and filled the space with driving taiko beats. Next, local self-described "super duper cool acrobaticalist ninja heroes group" Nanda took the stage and wowed the audience with its unique blend of martial arts and physical comedy.

At the end of the night, some of the interns performed a dance for the audience. While the female interns hopped up and down as a cheerful, synchronized group with flowers tucked behind their ears, a small cluster of similarly clad male interns bounded out to join them. The audience laughed and cheered as the Japanese troupe — now complete — finished its routine. From the enthusiasm of the audience and the good-natured grins of the interns, it was apparent that the money raised during the evening was going to a good cause.

To learn more, visit <www.oyanokai.org> or <www.pps.k12.or.us/schools/richmond>.