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'Scenes from a Country Tea Room' began in 1989 when my oldest daughter, Shinobu, started tea ceremony lessons with Mme. Soritsu Nakatani, tea master of the Ura Senke School, in Sacramento. Even though Nakatani Sensei did not ever discuss the philosophy of tea in explicit terms, I became aware increasingly aware of the relationship between the aesthetic principles of the tea ceremony and contemporary American culture, particularly the Lebensform sometimes referred to as 'Northern California country.'
Although I am a poet, my first efforts to document the tea ceremony were photographic. Nakatani Sensei kindly permitted me to photograph Shino's lessons as well as her elegant garden. But however pleased I was with the pictures, I couldn't help but feel that an important message in cultural synthesis was being lost since the scenes of the tea room could just as easily have taken place in Japan as opposed to their actual location in heart of Sacramento, California.
Needless to say, I have not attempted to give an acccurate portrayal of the tea ceremony. Rather, the poems and photographs serve as a subjective image of the integration of traditional Japanese and contemporary American values. |
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'Scenes' was presented twice in 1993. The first exhibition was in the Spring and featured a performance with Nakatani Sensei's students to early Latin liturgical music performed by the University of California, Davis Early Music Ensemble directed by Dr. David Nutter. The exhibit was then taken to San Francisco where it was part of the 'Bizen Sonata' exhibition at the Bayfront Gallery, Fort Mason Center.
We are now pleased to present this internet version of 'Scenes from a Country Tea Room' in both English and Spanish and hope it will serve to both delight and instruct. This task would not have been possible, however, without the Spanish translations provided by Ms. Nancy Zimmermann, who has enabled us to expand the scope of this project into the Spanish-speaking world.
Ronald Phillip Tanaka |