Dance Performance

For just about all of October, I’ve been practicing a traditional Japanese dance with some other 留学生 (international students) and today we finally performed it on stage. I originally got involved with this particular extracurricular activity when a group of Japanese women came to KG and gave us all yukata (which are basically summer kimono) to try on and wear. They then taught us a bunch of traditional Japanese dances and offered us all the chance to learn and perform a Japanese dance when they held their annual autumn dance concert.



Before I came to Japan I promised myself that I’d try to step outside my box, so (with a little peer pressure) I signed up. The dance I learned was called 新・梅は咲いたか　(The Plum and Cherry Blossoms). It took me most of October to truly figure out what in the heck I was doing, but during one practice session in late October it all clicked (better late than never!). I spent most of the today with my dance group waiting around to go on. We all arrived at the dance hall around 9am or so, but weren’t going on until a little after 1pm, so we had a fair amount of time to kill. Most of which was spent being dressed and having our hair and makeup done. I don’t think I could ever handle wearing a corset – yukata/kimono are tight enough! Not to mention the wooden zori (sandals, basically) that we had to wear on our way to and from the stage. No one’s zori fit their feet and the zori were so narrow and short that everyone’s heels were free hanging. I don’t think I need to tell you that wearing zori *hurt*! Even though the zori and yukata/kimono were a bit of a struggle, I definitely felt transformed especially after my hair was pinned up and my makeup was put on. I can’t say I’ve ever sported a white face/small red lips/dark eyebrows look before. It sort of felt like we were in Memoirs of a Geisha.
I’ve only ever been on stage for music concerts and I can’t say I’ve ever been much of a dancer, so it was definitely nerve wracking walking up on stage! Even though we had a lot of time between our arrival at the hall and our dance performance, the time felt like it flew by. Before I knew it, we were all nervously goofing around in a hallway that leads into the backstage area and getting ready to go on. I was especially nervous because I wasn’t able to wear my glasses on stage and had decided to just do the dance blind instead of bothering with contacts. It definitely felt like the only thing keeping the butterflies in my stomach contained was the obi that had been wrapped around me so tightly!



As soon as we stepped out onto the stage, organized ourselves into our ‘stand by’ poses, and the music started playing, my nerves just went away. Dancing blind was surprisingly easy and in fact, I’m glad I did it because although I could see and make out my fellow dancers, I couldn’t see anyone in the audience! It was literally like performing for an empty auditorium. Everything went by without a hitch and before I knew it, we were done. When the curtain fell, we all broke out into grins. I imagine we would have cheered if we weren’t in Japan – we got the impression that we were supposed to be quiet even though we were exuberant!



After our performance, we freed ourselves of our yukata/kimono and zori and booked it out of there. Some friends had come to watch us, so we wandered around outside with them for a bit. There was a benefit festival for the nearby hospital so we stopped by and I bought myself some cotton candy. I was under the impression there wasn’t cotton candy in Japan because I’d had to explain what it was to my host siblings who were baffled by my description. After wandering around the festival for a bit, we all went to Mos Burger (which has *phenomenal* burgers) and then we all headed our separate ways. Two friends and I stopped at Kiddy Land and a few other stores outside Hirakata Station. Kiddy Land is pretty much a store filled with cute, adorable things and I have the feeling I’m going to be spending whatever money I have left at the end of the semester in that store. My cheap headphones are falling apart and they have some vintage-style, bright purple ones I think I’d like to buy myself.



Shopping done (or more specific, window shopping), I spent a few hours at one of the KG dorms and then biked home to my home stay just in time for dinner. We had a speed tournament after, which my host mom was champion of. I came in fourth out of five, but I like to think I wasn’t properly warmed up!
And now here I am writing this blog post. The semester is starting to wind down, but my classes sure haven’t and I have more homework than ever. Best get to it.