erinn and buddhism?

the weekend between kochi’s yosakoi festival and super yosakoi in harajuku (tokyo), we had a “spiritual retreat” at senkoji temple in the mountains of takayama (gifu). 小倉先生, miyuki, miki, and i all went as “teachers”. . . obviously for dance and not the spiritual part. . . but none of us can recall doing any teaching. in fact, i think we learned the most (especially me, you know, not being buddhist).

for three days, we ate, slept, and danced at the temple. we also had buddhist services (chanting and all) at 6a.m. followed by meditation sessions. . .fyi: the temple’s original floor, which has since become the ceiling, still has blood stains from samurai who died by seppuku -slitting their stomachs. . . kind of creepy place to meditate, right?



anyway, the whole experience was really interesting (despite the fact that i understood about 5% of what was being said). the buddhist priest was a really amazing guy as well. he joined us every night after dinner and baths for chats about dance, music, travel, and religion. when he was younger, he walked all the way from gifu to shikoku, through the 88 temple pilgrimage, and back to gifu. one night, he tried to explain a bit of the differences between christian and buddhist thinking/ philosophy to me in japanese, broken english, and drawings. . . fyi: religion is not an easy topic to discuss in a language that is not your own. . .but we did our best. . .what else? oh, he also happens to be a musician and has produced a cd of buddhist music and chants, in a sense inspired by christian hymns. . .kind of, sort of. . .during a service at a european cathedral, he found himself wondering why buddhist music couldn’t produce that same feeling of awe and emotion that christian hymns could. . . which is basically what influenced his arrangements of the buddhist chants. . .like i said, seriously amazing guy. . .

so. . . we danced and hiked through the mountains. . .



we even took a miniature piligrimage through the 88 temples of senkoji (a miniature version of shikoku's 88 temple pilgrimage). . . according to miyuki, we had a good ghost with us (she knows this because of in the bright spot in the top corner). . .



at the end of the retreat we celebrated our efforts to be pure and meditative beings in nature by strolling through the streets of takayama, shopping, taking pictures in giant chairs with the takayama sarubobo (baby monkey), and gorging ourselves on delicious yakiniku, cake, and coffee. . .oops. . .











senkoji's homepage: http://daien.senkouji.com/

土佐の高知のよさこい祭り！

YOSAKOI!!!


i have never gone through so many highs and lows in two days. . . probably not even in two years!!

august 10th and 11th 2007. . .
wake up 3:30a.m. . . .
shower. . .
drive to kochi city. . .
hair and make up appointment at 5a.m (major issues with stylist). . .
coffee and calorie mate for breakfast at 6:30a.m. . . .
half crash until 9a.m. (requires sleeping while trying not to disturb the overly expensive but nonetheless professionally done hair and makeup) . . .
catch the train to kochi station (one of the few crazy people in full costume carrying naruko). . .

10a.m. team des shabary meeting and warm-up. . .
then the day begins. . .begins with exhaustion from 3 1/2 hours of sleep the previous night. . . frustration with the old lady trying to hang curls down my forehead but ending up getting annoyed with the picky foreigner and pulling it back into a severe ponytail. . . almost throwing up from a weird mix of not eating, not sleeping, and not knowing what to expect from this festival in the intense kochi summer heat. . .

time to dance (朝:11時から夜:22時). . .










muscle pain. . .
starvation. . .
dehydration. . .
lack of breath. . .
excess of heat. . .
sunburnt face, chest, hair. . .

hit a wall. . .
pass it. . .
hunger fades. . .

there is always time for one more dance before the food. . .
then there is exhaustion beyond exhaustion. . .
and even more pain and exhaustion beyond that. . .

somehow the crowd. . .
or the lights . . .
or the taiko drums. . .
or the music. . .
or the mcs. . .
or the team. . .
or 小倉先生. . .
something pulls you through everything. . .










the flower medal. . .
the tv camera. . .
naps on the bus. . .
self-massages. . .
shaved ice かき氷. . . especially mango with sweetened condensed milk. . .


enormous blocks of ice to cool down your body mixed with the sweat of all your teammates. . . you don’t even stop to think how disgusting it is . . . your all in it together. . .



screaming, yelling, singing, cheering. . . which pumps you up but leaves you with no voice the next day. . . no voice now (two days later). . .



all this resulting in the most amazingly memorable experience. . .

土佐の高知のはりまや橋で　
坊さんかんざし買うを見た　
よさこい　よさこい














final performance . . .


technically this is at harajuku super yosakoi in tokyo two weeks after kochi's festival. . .same team, same dance, easier to see [me] v(^_^)v . . .


if you want to see more pictures from yosakoi, use this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029425&l=11cfb&id=40401705

Team des Shabary with Dance Cream (performance schedule)

８月１０日（金）
10:00 新京橋プラザ横噴水前集団（出席を取ってください）Warm up
11:30 中央公園ステージ
13:00　はりまや橋商店街
15:00 万々商店街
17:00 愛宕商店街
18:00 夕食 潮江西の丸公園
19:00 梅ノ辻
20:00 追手筋必着
20:42 本部競演場


８月１１日（土）
10:00 高知公園丸の内緑地 橋の辺り集合（出席を取ってください）Warm up
11:20 帯屋町商店街
13:00 中央公園ステージ
14:30 上町
16:30 升形
17:30 夕食 青柳公園
19:00 知寄町
21:00 菜園場

endurance. . .

reflecting on my past (almost) two years in japan, i have decided that the best preparation i had came from my days as a cross country runner. this is why. . .

every year i run at sports day. they make me race either the fast girls or the slow boys. i also run in the school road race (which is really just cross country on normal roads). . .

two weeks ago, i climbed a mountain with my students. this is the second time that i have been among the first three to reach the top. one boy was frustrated that i passed him (again) in the last portion consisting of a million stairs. . .













one week ago, i swam in the junior high swimming competition. since i hadn’t been swimming for quite some time, i said i would join the girls 50m freestyle race. if i had been thinking properly, i would have joined the boys. unfortunately, i finished a full 15-20m ahead of all the girls. . .

is it bad to compete against junior high school students? ;) they sometimes write in their school diaries about how impressed they are when their 'old' teachers compete with them. . .not sure if that includes me? am i old? sad thought. . .

finally, this past sunday, i danced from three in the afternoon until nine at night. we are preparing for the yosakoi festival in august. it is insanely hot! they don't use air conditioners. . . even at the dance studio! we rely on fans and the cross breeze of the windows to keep us cool. guess it's supposed to prepare us for the summer when we dance down the city streets from ten in the morning to ten at night. . .


anyway, i have a feeling this summer may just kill me. . .

うんてん嫌い

maybe i should try this out in japan. . .


Tired Of Traffic? A New DOT Report Urges Drivers: 'Honk'

Dance Labo 2 WONDER!

about a year ago, my dance teacher asked me to dance in Dance Labo II: WONDER . . . a production including dancers from ten studios in kochi. . . the main character was a mime on a journey . . .possibly in search of his soul??. . . you would think i would know the entire story after a year of work with and participation in the show. . . the thing is that no one ever actually explained it to me in english. . . so i got what i could and went with that. . .

anyway, it was definitely the biggest production i have been in thus far. . . there were over 100 dancers . . . “i was the only foreigner” (much fuss was made over that fact). . .

it was really interesting to experience the entire process of creating a show. . . the writing of the story . . . the composing of the music. . . the designing of the costumes (the costume designer originally wanted us to wear black ponchos!! my instructor gave her a good lecture on putting a bag over a dancer's body!!!) . . .


then there was the publicity. . . attending press conferences . . . finding sponsors . . . selling tickets. . .

and, of course, the typical dance stuff. . . the choreography process. . . rehearsals . . .lighting. . . makeup (only this time we had professional hair and makeup artists on staff!). . .

and finally the performance itself!!!

many of the reviews we got said it reminded people of a las vegas show. . .

my studio’s main number was the seventh and final wonder. . . “mystery circles” (a.k.a. crop circles in non-japanese english). . . you can watch a video clip of the dress rehearsal if you click in the box that says WONDER! 2007年4月28,29日 at
http://www.geocities.jp/dancecream2/gazou/gazou.html

so. . . amazing. . . fun. . . etc. . . here are some backstage pictures!













sakura is the youngest person at the studio. . . she was trying to do her english homework between numbers. . . and occasionally took a break to check her mail. . .













on our way to the cast party after the final performance, taka and kana decided to make some extra money doing a mime dance down the main shopping street. . .

びっくりした！

i finally experienced my first earthquake in waking hours. . .

during first period with my ３年生 (third year junior high school students), i felt this slight shaking…カタカタ…BAM. . .and kind of toppled into the podium at the front of the classroom with the large jolt. . . everyone just sat there with this stunned, confused expression for a split second. . . as the shaking continued…カタカタカタカタ…the teacher started yelling at the kids to get under their desks. . .and then turned to me, as i was obviously still standing in shock, and yelled at me to get down as well. . .

tsuyoshi's students were outside collecting something for a science experiment when it happened, so they apparently didn’t even notice it. . . they thought it was wind that blew a few loose twigs out of the trees. . .

anyway, someone who was much more aware of the event than me decided that it lasted approximately 40 seconds. . . the official report said it had a magnitude of 5.4 and was based in ehime prefecture, which is part of shikoku island. . . what we felt in kahoku had a magnitude of about 4. . .

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070009939

ironically enough, april 26th was also fire and earthquake safety awareness day at the junior high school. . . i suppose experiencing an actual earthquake is the best way to practice for/ become aware of the real thing. . . certainly much more effective than the afternoon announcement and practice drill. . .


fire safety was rather entertaining . . . but a bit less realistic. . .firefighters came and started a little fire in the middle of the school grounds. . . some of the students got to use the extinguishers to put it out. . .

then, all of the first year students (and i) had to go down the emergency slide from the third floor of the school. . .



and the second years had to go down the straight shoot (also from the third floor). . .an event which i was only brave enough to watch. . .if you zoom in, you can see the boy who wore his bike helmet all day long after the morning quake. . .

東京 (Part 3)

i mostly want to share some pictures from the final part of our trip. . .

on our last full day in tokyo, we went to shibuya and harajuku. . . shibuya contains fames such as the nhk building (nhk is like the bbc of japan), lots of shopping, an amusing electronic museum, and the following dancers. . .














this style is called para-para dance. . . i watched a documentary (of sorts) about them on tv once, and it was the most ridiculous dancing i had ever seen. . . pretty much just hand movements. . . but they take it so seriously. . .and the leaders were so cruel that i was afraid to take their pictures when we happened to see them rehearsing on the street. . .weird, right?

not far from that trend are the teens in costume play. . . harajuku is a huge area for people to dress up in goth outfits and just kind of hang out with their friends and let random people take pictures of them. . . there may be more to all this, but that’s how it looked to me. . .






so. . .that evening we finally met up with toshi (after a year and a half of almost crossing paths – but not quite – in both america and japan) . . .now it’s his turn to visit kochi. . . if i can just convince him that the kochi airport is a safe place to fly into. . .

anyway, we finished our trip on saturday by going to shinjuku. . . which didn’t seem all that interesting aside from the basic setup of it containing the business center of tokyo on side of the tracks. . . and the redlight district on the other. . . quite the combination. . .

anyway. . . one last picture from tokyo. . . in case you ever forget your pants. . . tokyo has them in vending machines for just five hundred yen. . .