Free & Open to the Public at the Ann Arbor District Library, Downtown, 1st-floor Lobby (343 South Fifth Avenue, Ann Arbor)

Join us for an exciting evening of Japanese storytelling, rakugo, featuring visiting rakugo performer, Sanyutei Ponta! This event will be in Japanese with English subtitles.

Performed by a single storyteller who brings multiple characters to life through gesture and voice, rakugo is a dynamic storytelling tradition with hundreds of years of history in Japan.

Sanyutei Ponta (三遊亭ぽん太) was born in Japan in 1985 and graduated from the Department of Sociology at Hosei University in Tokyo. In 2015 he became a disciple of rakugo performer Sanyutei Koraku and was promoted to futatsume, the second-highest rank for rakugo performers, in 2018. His stage name, Sanyutei Ponta II, comes from Sanyutei Ponta I, who was a disciple of rakugo master Sanyutei Encho I, an influential performer of the late nineteenth century. Ponta revived this stage name for the first time in over 100 years and is an up-and-coming rakugo performer.

This event is hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library and cosponsored by the Japan Business Society of Detroit and the U-M Center for Japanese Studies.