Traditional Japanese Dance
Mood:  bright
Fujima style Japanese dance.

One of the ladies at the Sogo Center, our main office, gives me free tickets every once in awhile. These tickets were too good to pass up. They were 5,000 yen each so I asked my friend Miki if she wanted to go. She was thinking of having her husband come and so called the number on the ticket to try to purchase an extra one for him. Miki told the woman that she had never been to a traditional Japanese dance like this. The woman was so impressed that she sent Miki two more free tickets! So I invited another teacher friend, Reiko. Atsuo, Miki's husband, couldn't make it so it was just we 3 girls. The theatre is in Osaka and is a Bunraku Theatre, a form of puppet theatre but this was a special performance of students of the Fujima style of dancing. I have to describe just a bit of the dancing but you really had to be there. One of the dances was a Spring Blossom dance. Paper petals floated down from the ceiling onto the stage. The little girl appeared to be about 12 years old to me. I was told later that this was a woman dancing this role. She sure fooled me! Traditional Japanese instruments accompanied the dancers. Sometimes I really enjoyed the music and sometimes it was very foreign to me - almost Tibetan or Chinese. One of my favorite dances was a story about a husband and wife quarreling. The baby is upset that they are angry and the grandmother tries to intervene. Now, realize that I'm just guessing on all this because even Miki and Reiko who are native speakers couldn't understand the words! Anyway, the husband and wife, we think were supposed to represent thunder and lightning - a very stormy dance. There were another few dances that involved what is called "hyagawari" a man slips in backstage of a dancer and pulls some strings on her kimono and with one swift jerk, voila, her kimono is ripped off to reveal a second colorful kimono underneath. Now that was impressive! One kimono would be hot. I can't imagine dancing in two layers of all that material on stage. Plus the material around her waist never moves. There was a dance involving a sake god, I think, and a lion with red, yellow and white streamers that reminded me of a Chinese dance. There were two spectacular dancers in orange costumes with flowing red wigs. Not sure who they were supposed to be but wow were they colorful! I just kept thinking about all my dancing buddies who would have loved this performance. Lucky me.


Saturday, March 20th
Lasagne for my Japanese friends

I got brave and made lasagna for two of my favorite Japanese families today. Sasaki sensei is one of my all-time favorite English teachers. He is also the coach of the Hamakoshien baseball team that I've written so much about. He has two young boys and it was a pleasure to have him and his wife and kids to dinner. Also, I've written about the Osawa's in the past. They have three boys; two are twins, and a girl as well - big family. Taku was at English camp this summer, and we hit it off from the start. He is a very determined boy who really loves speaking English. Taku and his twin brother, Shin, are in baseball club, so I watched them play many games last year. Mr. Osawa is a baseball fanatic and every game that I went to I was happy to visit with Tamie, his wife and him. I was a bit nervous fixing a dinner for 5 adults and 5 kids but I think that everyone enjoyed themselves. Tamie brought some wonderful hors d'oeuvres so I didn't have to worry about that. There weren't many leftovers and I ended up with a bottle of sake so that ain't bad, eh?