Hey, Tory, I got the Vietnamese guy with the sword!

It's just not every day you get to call a former genderbending spaceman and say, "Hey, Tory, I got the Vietnamese guy with the sword!"

But that was indeed my message this afternoon for Tory Z. Starbuck after having lunch at Miss Saigon and convincing Joseph Dang, who waits tables there, to lend his kendo martial arts of the sword to a performance piece Tory and I are cooking up.

The project: to score the poem "The Man Root (For Sumiko's Birthday) by Shiraishi Kazuko for sword, belly dancer (Sheri Danger), birthday cake (baked by me, a first) and whatever Tory wants to play.

In a MySpace message, he speculated, "I love the Japanese string sound that you brought up, but I am not sure how well it would work without percussion (for the bellydancing). My Turkish Saz and my ankle bells would work for Sheri because that is what I use at COCA and Wash-U for their dance classes. I do not want to completely rule out the Japanese sound on guitar just yet though."

After talking to Joseph, I can rule him in on sword. He showed me some videos of his sword work during lunch. This evening I am going to see him teach Kendo at SLU to see if that gives me any ideas. In the meantime, Joseph has already emailed me some homework:

"This video, for instance, I would like for you to check out. This video is a music video but yet it captures it's true meaning for kendo, like it doesn't matter who or what size you are in being strong. And this video basically represents the artfullness of kendo."

Off we go into the next adventure.

*

Kendo image from Redlands Akikikai.