Picture book: Notoyosakoi

It is pretty hard to describe my feelings when finally the time had arrived that I had been waiting for so long and had been prepairing for, together with about 50 others, with so much energy and time. Last weekend was Notoyosakoi and it really was amazing. Really being there and watching the teams dance, and - of course and maybe most important - dancing oneself is one of the coolest things I've done. I'm not able to describe it well enough anyways, so maybe a few pictures will at least give a tiny insight into what I experienced last weekend.

After arriving around 15:00 after about one and a half hour drive at our "Ryokan" (a traditional style hotel) the first thing we saw was one of the most prestigious teams, an all-men team, perform for the hotel staff. Pretty impressive... to make the understatement of the month.

We also still saw them on stage a few hours later. 

All our own performances would only be on sunday but on Saturday night was also still a big celebration of all the Yosakoi teams together. I won't even try describing that one... To say the Japanese are crazy would be the understatement of the year...

(Well, ok, I have to try: numerous state performances, amoung others of men in too short skirts wearing strings... yeah... well....... our team's 'performance' fortunately was only an impromptu dance to some song that is obviously pretty famous in Japan) But yeah, I would be lying it I didn't admit that it was a lot of fun.

But anyways, it was getting late and we would have to get up before seven the next morning to get breakfast and then prepare ourselves for a day of performances.

Helping each other with our makeup and hairdos. I liked a lot what one of our seniors (meaning the people that had danced Yosakoi in the team for the longest) did to my hair. They needed about 3 hours to convince me that makeup would be good as well. In the end I agreed to some green eyeshadow...

 Zechi, our dance leader, on the left and the guy swinging the biggest of our three flags on the right. He was still repairing his costume I think. He wasn't the only one. Some others were also still applying the seal to our Naruko (the 'rattles') on the same morning, or wrapping the Naruko-handles 'samurai-style'. Here a pic of my own set of Naruko:

Eventually we did get ready in time and went to the place of our first performance with would be the loop parade. To explain: in Yosakoi every team had their own music and with that a base choreography which exists in two different versions. In one version the whole team moves forward continuously, the parade, and a version for the stage, with its limited space. The parade can be done either just once, or many times in a row, which called loop. The loop, depending on the choreography, can be extremely tiring, because it really goes without break. From the end of the song we had maybe five seconds to get back to our starting positions, then it would start over.

Our first performance on sunday, around 12:00, would be the parade. And we would be performing directly after the prestigious all-male team that we saw before the hotel.
Ups. On the other hand I was told that also TNC is supposedly quite famous and we did indeed have some fans along the road. I'm pretty sure they were all from our school, though. But never mind if for us or the guys before us or both: the street was packed on both sides with people. And then when we finally started... Oh wow. Absolutely freaking amazing! I think I was slightly in the wrong place a few times, but really, I don't think it even mattered. It felt sooo good. And judging from the reaction of the audience I'd say they really liked what they saw.

Since in our choreography we move forward pretty fast we got our music through only roughly 2 1/2 times, the people at the start were already cheering at us when they had reached the end of the alotted space of road and had stopped dancing.

No need to say that after that - and after downing alltogether something like 70 cups of water - we were very happy.
 

 Only a fraction of our group. On my left side is Lee (or Ree?), a girl from China who has been in Japan for almost 4 years now. Still beside her is Marina from one of my urushi classes who danced herself last year and this year had come to help with managing this whole thing, the girl sadly hardly to be seen beside Marina was also helping out.

 Marina again together with the manager of our team!

 Ken-chan being... well, Ken. A fellow dancer, as new to the team as I.

 And I wish I remembered his name... He's the guy that holds the microphone and shouts into it while we dance. He's the crowd warmer and host, he introduces us as well as shouts over/with/through the music. He's crazy. Crazy enough that I would probably get tired of him after a longer time. But for a limited amount he's a lot of fun.

I really like this photo. Way to go, guys! Daiichi (I hope I got that name right...) on the left. He's the waver of one smaller flag and he has lived for about 9 years in England. Therefore he speaks English fluently which is sooo nice for me because once in a while I'm able to talk to someone who will understand what I say perfectly and the other way round.

Then some random photos of other teams...

 Those girls had some pretty interesting costumes. Skirts from the back, more like trousers (Hakama, for those who know the term) from the front. Boots and Kimono with the sleeves bound back. Not bad...

Anyway, in between watching some other teams and just generally spending time on the festival area we had 2 more parade performances of which I messed up the one that was the official performance for the sake of taking photos. We had much, much less space than used to for that one and it somehow threw me out of my concept. In between I had a blackout and missed a few seconds before getting back in the flow. I'm not sure how badly it was to be noticed. There were at least two times I missed a turning I think. But oh well... the last parade went well again, except maybe that one of my naruko broke at the very start. But it didn't throw me off and I think I danced through well. Our manager picked up the three little wooden parts that had flewn off so now I can repair it.

The last performance of that festival finally was the stage. The newbies of the team wouldn't be part of it, so we sat in the audience to watch and of course scream our lungs out for out teammates. I think they danced well, though I have to say that I also think that the stage will probably look better when all of us dance it. But no problem there. July, with numerous festivals is coming and now we have one month so everybody can prepare for the stage as well. Zechi (dance leader) also said he wanted to change some parts of the choreography to make it better. Notoyosakoi was a rough version, in a way. Something where we had to work really hard just to get it ready in time. For the next performance we will perfect it and I am soooo looking forward to doing that, and to dancing again for an audience.

On wednesday there will be training again and we will watch the videos our helpers took of our performances. And of course, dance again.

The stage team directly after their performance.