Japanese country line dancers

A brief aside from “tales from the trip”…

The Japanese love Western-style country line dancing. Many people go to clubs in Tokyo, dressed to the nines in full-on cowboy regalia: hats, chaps, boots, even spurs – careful with those on the train! Country line dancing suits the group mentality in the Japanese society and is very similar to traditional Japanese dancing.

Our town is preparing to celebrate Bon Odori – that special time when the rainy season is good and over and your ancestors come home to visit for a week. Spirits who are lost or have no home run rampant through the cities and countryside, making appearances and causing concern in subways and alleys. This is not a joke; the Japanese take this very seriously, leaving food and gifts out. They are on their best behavior, lest they distress Great-Great-Grand Uncle Hiroshi. School is out for a brief summer and it seems as if everything has stopped; the streets are less crowded (almost empty by Japanese standards, but still packed by Australian standards) and people are spending more time in personal pursuits.

On Saturday our small town is having a Bon Odori festival. There will be the usual food and drink stalls (yakisoba, yakitori – chicken on a stick, you can’t go wrong with chicken on a stick) and various sporting events – the Japanese love to compete. But, the real attractions, the main purposes of the festival, will be the shrine parade and dance competition. A shrine parade involves young men, hopped up on adrenaline (and maybe beer or sake – I don’t know for sure) and whipped into a frenzy by the beat of the tycho drums, carrying a portable replica of the local shrine through the town on their shoulders. The shrine bobs up and down as the men jump and dance. These things are heavy and require several people to carry them. The jumping and dancing needs to be in some sort of synchronicity (not like the Police) or people will get injured or drop the shrine (I can imagine the ancestors would be scandalized by THAT). Still, despite care taken to keep everyone moving the same way, trampled and exhausted shrine bearers dot the parade route in its wake.

The dancing is rather like country line dancing. Teams of 15-20 will compete against one another doing traditional dances. Our town is small, so maximum participation is required. It wouldn’t do for just one team to get up there and win by default; our town would look bad in the eyes of the surrounding towns, as well. So, this week I have been going to Bon Odori dance lessons given by the festival dance coordinator. It looks like the local gaijin will be fielding four teams. I don’t know for sure how many local teams there will be – at least ten. We don’t stand a chance. We have learned about seven dances, including the Tokyo spirit dance, the Zama big kite dance, the fisherman’s dance, the woodcutter’s wife dance, the cherry blossom dance and a couple of others. Our teacher is very well known and respected in the region and seems to be getting a kick out of our clumsy efforts. Sensei is about 70 years old and 4’6″. She laughs behind her hand at a couple of the over 6′ gaijin, especially when we’re doing a dance that is for women only (I don’t think she has the heart to tell them – let the gaijin have their fun).

Dancing is the loftiest, most moving, the most beautiful of all the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. – Havelock Ellis