update 1: dance

よし, my last full blog mentioned my numerous dance opportunities. . . all of which were amazing. . .except maybe my life/death solos, which i never felt i fully understood. . .

first, afro-fusion with vincent. . . i have a sort of love/ hate thing for african dance classes, the music and movements are always absolutely gorgeous. . . unfortunately for me, i have rather limited torso movement as well as limited abilities when it comes to keeping five rhythms at the same time on different body parts. . . vincent’s class was the first african dance class that i have taken over a period of several days, which made a huge difference. . . by the last day, i felt like i was actually starting to catch some of the rhythms and loosen up a bit. . . we’ll see how i do a year from now when he returns. :)

vincent was also the first person who made me realize how at home i have become in japan. . . i realized this at the party the studio had right before his workshop began. . . it was the first time i had been with a foreigner in japan who was not in my position (completely immersed in the culture for an extended period of time). . . i found myself translating comments for him as well as for the japanese speakers. . . i was also able to explain certain foods and traditions . . . most days i feel like i’m not learning enough and definitely not learning it fast enough to keep up with daily life. . . but this experience made a huge difference. . . to realize just how much i really do understand . . . the translating was the fun part for me, as i am rarely in a position to do that . . (a lot of the other alts speak japanese. . . especially the ones from australia). . .right. . . so, dance experience number one was great. . . onto the next. . .

over golden week (beginning of may), i attended a series of workshops in kyoto. . . in general, i wasn’t that impressed. . . the dancers were so-so, as well as some of the instructors. . .thankfully, my teacher in kochi filled me in on some of the classes in advance, so i did end up taking from two pretty amazing people. . . one was keith thompson, who ironically enough was one of the founding members of zennon dance company in minneapolis (about forty-five minutes from st. olaf). he later moved on to dance with the trisha brown dance company and now teaches at temple university, has his own dance company that is to premier in nyc in the near future, and travels the world doing workshops. . . we got along quite well. . . if i can actually manage to write consistent emails, he will be an excellent contact for the future. . . the other teacher that i really enjoyed was jung young-doo from korea. whenever i get going and get over to seoul to visit sangmee, i hope to meet up with jung young-doo again and do a bit of dancing. . . while keith’s style was kind of the current style of american modern dance that i had experienced in college, jung’s style was very different. we rarely used music. . . he was the calmest dancer i have ever met. . . and he was always very clear with his direction and focus. it brought back a lot of memories from susan’s classes at olaf, experimenting with weight and focus and direction. . . maybe that’s why i did so well. . . whatever it was, i really felt my confidence grow at the workshops. . .

two kind of sidenotes. . .

first, a conversation with jung after class:
j: “what are you doing in japan?”
e: “i’m teaching english.”
j: “really, i think you are dancer.”
e: “no, i really want to be, but i’m not.”
j: “how old are you?”
e: “twenty-three.”
j: “oh, you have no problem. you are young. i do not think you are english teacher. i think you are dancer.”
so, that was the first time a professional dancer had ever called me a dancer. . . pretty exciting i thought.

second, my conversation with the professional clown who was staying at the same backpackers hotel as me:
e: “i’d like to be a professional dancer, but i’m not.”
c: “why not? just quit your job. . . then you’ll be a professional dancer.”
i found that rather amusing. . . he was a cool guy. . . originally from australia, now living in south africa. . . but mostly just traveling the world being a clown (more of a street performer than a clown. . . no makeup. . . lots of acrobatic tricks). . . he also told me how he took ballet classes for one or two years in college(?) but got kicked out of class everyday. . . miraculously, the teacher let him back in every morning. . . guess he got bored with the structure involved in ballet. . . too monotonous for him.

okay, moving on. . . if my mental calendar of events is correct, my next dance report is uchiyama tokei’s dance theatre. . . a.k.a. martha graham and my life/death solos. . . which someone later translated for me as sky or earth, which is insanely different from life and death. . . not much to say here. . . it went well. . . no major mistakes. . . people said i was beautiful, captivating (think they used the thesaurus for that one), etc. . . tsuyoshi’s comment was simply that i was almost naked (if your not used to dance, i suppose a leotard with a see through shirt and skirt is the equivalent of almost naked. . .after the nude unitards we had to wear for waterstudy, nothing seems to bother me too much). . . it just wasn’t really my style of dance. . . i couldn’t really feel the movements, and the music always felt too overpowering for the dance. . . anyway, that is over. . . i am supposed to be in another performance in november (as a queen of something. . . wish i understood more japanese at times), but i think i may have another dance performance with my other studio that weekend. . . yikes. . .

ahhh. . .almost done with the dance update. . . finally, christopher (the former ailey soloist) returned to teach four days of workshops (one of which i had to miss to teach my community class. . . so, so, so, so sad). . . not much to say here other than christopher is amazing. . . that and the comment that came out of it from my japanese instructor. . . he injured his calf on the last day and had to sit out and watch the last part of the workshop. . . afterwards he came up to me. . . “i was watching you. you know you have improved so much. . .especially learning movements. i remember when you first came into my class. it was always like ‘ahhh’.” a few days later, he asked me to join his yosakoi team, which has been invited to perform as special guests at the yosakoi festival in osaka my birthday weekend (mid-november). . . travel/hotel expenses paid. . . sounds like the ideal birthday celebration to me. . . we’ll do four or five dances, ranging from more traditional to somewhat jazzy. . . rehearsals start this friday. . . exciting, huh?

so, i guess i’ll stop there with the dance events. . . the amount of dance opportunities and connections i have made here is really miraculous. . . i really do not think i would have survived more than two months without dance. . . my jazz teacher has been the most amazing person. he’s the one with all the connections (afro-fusion, christopher, noism, etc.). . . he said that the studio goes into the red every time they bring in a guest instructor, but he wants people to have the experience of working with professional dancers. . . so amazing.

okay, dinner time. . . this may be the only blog i get out today. . . i'll keep working on my other reports. . . soon, i hope. . .ごめんね