Chills Down My Spine

Wow.

Amazing.

Just...wow.

Today, I went with Ingram to see the Miyako Odori, "Dances of the Old Capital" - it was created in 1872 as a measure to help Kyoto revive its spirits after the Emperor jumped ship and went to Tokyo, along with the official designation of "the capital of Japan."

Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that - I actually did research on the Miyako Odori and the Emperor leaving as a part of my project. That is what made going to the Miyako Odori today so significant: I am actually partaking in something that I read about and wrote about. It was kind of eerie in a way.

Ingram and I got special tickets that were about 4300yen - came with a tea ceremony, a souvenier plate, and seats in the orchestra area. The tea ceremony was kinda hilarious in a way: there were two geisha in the front of the room which had seats for about 80 people and the tea ceremony was done factory-style, en masse. So much for my first tea ceremony. But I had matcha, a sweet and did not have to sit down on the floor so it was all good.

Ingram and I had good seats: 9th row right on the aisle. When the house lights darkened, I did not know what to expect. Then, all of a sudden, the curtains on the sides of the seating area lifted: on one side, you had geisha in full costume playing various drums and flutes, on the other side were a group of black kimono clad women playing shamisen, a kind of traditional Japanese guitar.

Then you heard a chorus of female voices, different from the shamisen women - in front of the musicians were small extensions of the stage; curtains opened, and out came about 20 geisha, 10 on either side. I wasn't expecting it so I sort of jumped in my seat from surprise, but after, hearing the musicians sing and seeing the geisha perform gave me chills down my spine; I have never seen anything like that before, and I have gone to several operas/B'way shows and such (more opera than B'way, I took opera class in high school - learning about it not performing - and my class got tix to the dress rehearsals at the Met every Friday).

Everyone burst into applause and began to murmur amongst themselves, so I guess the producers of the show got the intended effect. There were many solo and ensemble performances, depicting traditional/well known stories. I think one of them was adapted from "The Tale of Genji" because it took place in the Heian period; I could tell which period it was because of the costuming. The songs were like the ones that my koto teacher once demonstrated to me - like Noh songs which have overly exaggerated syllables and the sound comes from the back of the throat. Still, it was spectacular to hear, even though I was only to catch a few words here and there. And, unlike the Noh performance that I went to back in December, I did not fall asleep. How could you fall asleep during this kind of performance? I kept moving my head around and fidgeting in my seat - not because I was uncomfortable (on the contrary!) but because the Japanese man in front of me had a rather large head and blocked my view.

My camera died in the middle of the show, since I was snapping right and left (or up and down rather to get people's heads out of the way) and wasn't using my flash - so the photos that I did get were rather blurry. Luckily, I had some spares (2 only, my camera takes 4) and I had my (well, Mel's camera, my sister got chocolate into the memory card section of my own crappy digi cam and Mel's is way better anyways) camera off long enough, so I was able to save some juice for the finale. It was all the better because the house lights were turned on for the finale, and I was able to get a few good shots (with my camera dying in between snaps) of the whole cast of the show.

I was very glad I went; the Miyako Odori is only in April, and I just keep getting subtle reminders such as "events that only take place in April-July" that tell me that the clock is ticking on my stay here. Going to the dances was a nice bookend to my first cherry blossom season; I will now indulge in one of my favorite photos of a particular cherry tree which is at a hole-in-the-wall Shinto shrine near my apartment: