Aki-Ra Sunrise

Creative expression through percussion came naturally to Aki-Ra as a teenager and he began playing in 1990. Ten years later he travelled to Europe and Africa where his style became influenced further and he began street performance. He soon began meeting and collaborating with musicians, dancers and performance artists all over the world, fusing his musical performances with his own original style of butoh dance, live trance, and sound healing. By 2015, Aki-Ra had performed in over 20 countries. Inspired by Dr. Masaru Emoto’s book Water Knows the Answer, Aki-Ra began working with water as a musical instrument. In 2007 he created the Hadourum as a means to express the sound vibration of water as a form of music. Since 2008, he has been performing with them throughout Japan and the world, using aurally and physically tangible sound vibration as a modus operandi for creative expression. Hadourums are a unique fusion of African water drum and Caribbean steelpan drum, made of various sizes and materials including steel, glass, and plastic. They are completely original, made exclusively and played professionally only by Aki-Ra. As well as expressing and presenting the effects of sonic vibration through playing hadouram, Aki-Ra also plays numerous percussion instruments, didgeridoos and flutes. He does cross-media solo performances as well as collaborative projects with various multi-media musicians, artists and performers, including live painting, movie soundtracks, choreographed dance, and creation of water pictures. Aki-Ra believes that music is a communication tool that operates beyond language