The arts colony in Santa Rosa’s A Street neighborhood will celebrate Japanese culture, while raising money to aid the victims of the earthquake and tsunami Japan, at “Matsuri,” a  Japanese arts festival running from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 2.

Now in its third year, this celebration has grown from a neighborhood art and tea event into a spring street festival.

Located next to Juilliard Park in Santa Rosa, the community of 25 artists and galleries known as the South of A (or SOFA) Arts District hosts several neighborhood events each year.

On Saturday, all SOFA galleries and studios will be open to the public, some hosting special exhibits of Japanese-inspired ceramics by Sonoma County artists.  Tea presentations will be offered each half hour in the Omotesenke and Urasenke traditions of tea.

Booths offering Japanese food, crafts and information will be set up in the courtyard behind Gallery of Sea & Heaven and Backstreet Gallery.

Performances of Japanese folk dancing and drumming will be presented by Sonoma County Taiko.

The program also includes Shakuhachi and Koto recitals, a Kamishibai Storytelling Theater, Judo and Aikido demonstrations and an Origami  demonstration by Henry Kaku and Mario Uribe, as they fold an 8- foot piece of painted paper containing messages of good will for Japan  into a giant origami crane.

Uribe, one of the organizers of the event, has designed the poster promoting it, which features a giant wave based on a 19th-century woodblock print by Hokusai.

Some artists are donating 25 percent of any art sales to a fund to aid  disaster victims in Japan.

Information: (707) 303-5925.

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