Well, having made that decision still left Yosakoi Toyama right in front of me. With a schedule that made me wonder whom I might be able to kill for planning it out. On Saturday we would be dancing 8 times. Three times of those would be loop-parades with 3 continous dances each, which made alltogether 14 times dancing the full choreography in a time frame of 8 hours. The most 'interesting' part of that was that we would be dancing basic parade/loop parade/basic parade/loop parade directly in a row with only about 10 to 15 minutes break after each dance. Our song is about 4 minutes 20 seconds, therefore 3 times loop makes about 13 minutes of continuous dancing (and that times two, plus two more single parade... ARGH!). Nice eh?
I was a bit scared.
Saturday started out with everybody from Takaoka or around meeting at the campus from where we went by car (as we had done for all the previous festivals) to Toyama. In some public building there was a huge basement space in which all the teams had to arrange themselves each in their corner. It was crowded but at least air-conditioned and better than nothing at all.
And the first dance was one I looked really forward to. For we were dancing at a shrine! We were, in fact, opening Yosakoi Toyama, being the very first team to dance that day!
We were gathered before the shrine, the three first yosakoi teams to dance, while the monks in the shrine prayed, I suppose, for a successful festival. It was strange to stand there in costume at a ceremony I really don't know anything about, but it was interesting and of course a very impressive opening. The shrine beautiful with its bright red gate and the serene beauty of the building. Definitely the best background for a stage so far.
And one more little thing. We were in a smaller group again, 28 instead of about 40 people, part of us dancing before the steps of the shrine and the other part a little higher on the dais. Which meant we had basically two 'front lines' and I was, yes, on the higher one. Nicely to be seen from anywhere. Uhm. That made for a good dose of nerves and adrenaline at the start, which turned out to be a very good thing. I think it went great, or at least it felt great, I haven't yet gotten my hands on any videos to see if it actually was great. At least it was definitely giving me courage. Something I turned out to really need less than 2 hours later when the the parade marathon was upon us.
By then I had finally given up to turn my head to the sky asking any ghosts or gods or whatever might have been around for rain. To no avail. Two days before the weather forecast talked of cloudy sky but that was true only very sprodically over the day, which sported toasty 32 degrees.
Well. We made it. All of us. And I definitely crossed some physical limits I didn't know I was able to cross. In between, before the last loop I was very much down. Tired, headache coming on, not having very much fun anymore. Marina, one of our managers became my personal angel with an ice pack for my neck and with that and lots of energy drink somehow the last parade passed as well.
One thing is for sure though: I honestly hate the humid-hot climate of the summer here, I much prefer the much drier Finnish climate. This damn moisture! One doesn't need to even move at all and still it's as if being drenched in sweat all the time. And if you actually do move....
It's amazing how much one person can sweat, really...
But on with it...
Compared to the parades the rest of that day was positively easy. There was the main stage, which was really cool and another basic parade/loop parade combination at night which was much easier than the one in sunlight. After that we drove back to Takaoka and getting home at around 11 I went straight to sleep. Next morning again by car to Toyama and then maybe the most exciting and/or important dance of the festival was imminent. Another loop parade, but this time, we would be recorded on video as well as judged.
Yosakoi Toyama is by far the biggest Yosakoi event around here. It's held once a year, and since 2008 they had been making DVDs of it which basically show each team's parade and stage performance. Each team dances the main state two times I think, and both are being filmed, but since filming the parade with the team moving forward at quite a fast pace, is somewhat more complicated it is done only once for each team. Also, that one was to be another triple loop parade! And there would be judges watching us, and there would be badges given to the best representatives of the team.
All that together made for a good dose of excitement. I actually think I messed up a bit here and there, I just hope I won't be seen on video while doing it... And, the cool thing, I did get a badge! At the point I wasn't so sure how to feel about it, but in afterthought am happy and a bit proud too. Thing with the badges is, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a good dancer. Our dance leader didn't get a bagde for example. Some other people that I think are definitely the best in our group didn't get a badge. Because what the judges, who give the badges do is they go through the team while it dances, always looking at the row of people right before them. We move forward on a road, always four people abreast, sometimes offset. So the judges see that small group of people for a few seconds and then give the badge to the person that in that moment strikes them as 'best', in some way. Best is the wrong word really... it's about looks, actually. Not 'good' or 'bad' looks, but about how you carry yourself, if you look as if you have fun, if you're into the whole thing, maybe you could call it charisma?! One other girl who I think should have gotten a badge but didn't, later said jokingly they give the badges by cuteness. Since I got a badge I didn't really want to agree to that, but looking at some others getting badges it was hard not to see her point. Also it makes me wonder if my getting a badge may not only have to do with the fact that I'm a Westerner and Japanese people tend to idealize Western features.
Oh well.... I don't know. Whyever I got it and whatever it really means, if nothing else, this badge will at least always be a great memory of a breathtaking event.
After the video parade there was different stage in a hall. A smaller team of which I wasn't part this time was dancing, but I definitely wasn't unhappy about the break. Then there was another loop parade (but two times only, fortunately) then another main stage and around 5 o'clock in the afternoon one last single parade.
And then we could finally stretch back in the shadow of one single, huge tree on the big lawn in front of the main stage. Today was 33 degrees, and no clouds and most of us had probably given their energy to the first parade so we were pretty exhausted. But there was one more thing to come.
This event's foremost idea is to celebrate yosakoi. To be there and dance, to entertain, to see the other teams. But in a way it is also a competition. Therefore the judges, of course. From the 60 teams that were attending, the best eight teams of the festival would be chosen and some other awards would be given for example for costumes or music and so on. All awarded teams would dance one last time on the main stage in the grand final.
TNC got the judge's 'special choice' award.
We were tired. We were happy, but probably not as enthusiastic about it as one might have expected us to be. Maybe somehow we didn't really get it. But when we stood behind the stage, and Mi-chan, the teams leader (as opposed to Zechi, who is dance leader) was about push us for one last last time (you know this kind of group prep where all stand together in a tight circle, screaming the team's name, getting one's adrenaline up) he started to cry. And at that point I think it hit all of us thas this was it. We had gotten an award, we were one of the best of those 60 teams. All the work, all the hours of training, the sweat, the exhaustion, had gotten a formal, official reward and we would dance there, one last time on that huge stage in front of, I don't know, a thousand people?! I told you it was a huge event. For some of us this would be the last Yosakoi Toyama with TNC. Or, the only time ever.
And damn did we dance.
In a video we saw afterwards from a recorded TV broadcast I don't think that dance looked so much different than our other stages, except maybe for the fact that you could really still see Mi-chan crying (I do feel sorry for him, having to see that on video, I hope for him that that one won't be on the DVD). But this dance damn well felt different and that's the only thing that matters. I dare say we've never given that much before and I really, seriously could feel it: the tension on that stage in a way that had never been there before. A connection between all of us, a unison that was breathtaking.
It is not hard to make out that moment as one impossible to forget.
And the weekend had been hard. And the time before that maybe even more so. But it ended in the most passionate way.
Later, after seeing the other awarded teams and the great eight, after slowly coming down from the high, it all was topped off with a slideshow of pictures taken as well as short clips from the videos on a huge screan, backed up by fireworks. It was the music that would have left me rolling on the ground laughing if we all hadn't been so tightly packed together.
It was a Japanese pop version of Beethoven's grand final choir of the 9th symphony, 'Freude schöner Götterfunken'.
'Alle Menschen werden Brüder', 'all humans becoming brothers' – well, at least in that moment, there was some truth to it.
…
Oh, only in Japan...
Uskomatonta <3 hyvä!
ReplyDelete