Swedish Rakugoka Sanyūtei Kōseinen Performs At My University!
Swedish professional rakugoka Sanyūtei Kōseinen was nice enough to stop by the university I work at to perform a few stories and explain the fundamentals of rakugo for staff and students today. Kōseinen and I actually go way back to when he and I were performing rakugo as amateurs. It was at a tournament for amateur rakugo enthusiasts in Chiba where I first met him. Later, when he made the huge decision to turn professional and find a master to train with, I made sure to interview him to get his unique perspective on a world that people rarely get to see from the inside.
To an audience in person and online, Kōseinen performed a few short stories in Japanese, English, and even his native Swedish. For his longer stories, Kōseinen chose to perform “Toki Soba” and “Shimekomi,” two entertaining traditional stories featuring some not too sharp criminals. It was great to catch up with Kōseinen and to see how much he has developed as a professional. In his second year as a futatsume (the second highest rank in the rakugo world), Kōseinen can now perform over forty different traditional and original stories. Below you can see a photo from his performance as well as a “then and now” pair of photos from when we first met and today.
