Kawaski Orchestra Take two!

So Saturday's night performance was lovely but I took rubbish photos which I am going to blame on the lighting in the room.

Therefore I don another kimono and made my way to their second performance in Sheffield at the Winter Gardens. This time it was the middle of the day and in a lovely bright inner city botanical garden.

I didn't mention this before but the reason why the orchestra is in Sheffield is because Kawaski and Sheffield were celebrating 20 years partnership and the Mayor of Kawaski is in the above photo (he is the one standing in the middle).

The ladies insisted that I had my photo taken with them, how could I refuse such lovely ladies.

I went a little overboard with the photographing so here is a link to my flickr page

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittykanzashi/sets/72157625225657387/

There is also a video of one of the dancer performing.

Enjoy!

Kawasaki Orchestra Concert

Well Facebook has certainly been very handy in this case because I only got to know about this concert on Thursday and it was happening on the Saturday. At a price of only £1 it was a bargain to good to let go.

In addition it is another chance to don my kimono.

I decided to wear the same purple/pink komon that I wore to the first Kimono de Jack UK a couple of weekends ago but I of course changed my obi. This time the obi I choose was a lovely black one with various mon on it. It is a little bit fragile so as this was going to be a short concert and I'm not going very far, I thought this seem to be the most ideal time to wear it.

Here is the outfit!

Not bad kitsuke for 20minutes and I'm loving the new elastic koshihimo that Hong gave me. My kimono stayed in place and I was nice and comfortable.

Here is a picture of the taiko.

and another closeup of the front.

So off I go to Bar One which is one of the student bars near the university. It was strange to be walking through Sheffield in full kimono especially on a Saturday night but no nasty comments which is good.

It was only a 10 minute mince for me but once I got there I saw the strangest sight. An empty student bar! I couldn't figure it out at the time as I was more concerned in finding the lounge that the concert was being held so the fewer people at the bar the better. It turns out it wasn't hard to find and we were actually early so we had a quick little drink and watched the Ireland v South Africa rugby match on big screen.

Hmmm I'm never a sport fan but if I had to watch one sport then it would be rugby. At least you feel that the players are earning the right amount of money for their sport unlike football but that is just one of my many pet hates (we will go into it another time!).

So the minutes disappeared as did my drink but eventually they got ready and we could go in. I paid my £2 to the guy (the other person who came with me was my partner) and we took our seats. Why is it that I always end up being the only person wearing a kimono at these events. One day this will get me into trouble!

I wish I knew more about traditional Japanese music but I don't but it was lovely to hear the koto and shakuhachi being played. They did a couple of Beatles songs as well which was amusing however I feel the koto sounds a lot better when it is playing music that has been composed for a koto.

There was also some traditional dancing as well but I couldn't get any pictures of him as my camera was useless at taking moving people.

Then the dancer wanted some audience participation in the bon odori dance. Do you remember me saying that wearing a kimono will get me into trouble, well the dancer noticed me and asked me to join in. How could I refuse? The man has travelled all this way so I had to didn't I.

It wasn't too bad until the tempo increased but it was soon over.

After the dancing there was a question and answer session but only one question was asked and it was whether they were playing again in Sheffield. The answer was yes, at the winter garden on Tuesday.

Questions over, it was offically over the concert but I couldn't go away without getting a group photo.

I got a glowing reception from these lovely ladies who were complementing my kimono and kitsuke skill. I was equally admiring their kimono and I wanted to get closeup of them but it seemed a little rude to do so.

I love the lady at the back playing with some sort of bamboo mat. During the concert she gave a mini demonstration of something the merchants use to do to make extra money. I was useless at guessing what she was trying to do but the bamboo mat looked fun. She is the sort of grandmother that would always make you laugh with her childish behaviour.

Also during this time, one of the koto players was allowing the audience to play twinkle, twinkle little star on her koto. I should have done it but I didn't have the guts anyway I have already spend 4 hours running a mini candy craft stall at Bear and Bungalow so I was feeling pretty tired.

Anyway, I plan to see them again on Tuesday in kimono again and hope to get better photos.

Wish me luck!

New addition to kimono wardrobe.

I have no idea what possessed me to get a paper umbrella from ebay but I did.



Not bad for $36.99 (not including postage yet). Now I need to find a way of maintain it so I can try to use it as a parasol.

Another accessory ticked off my list!

Nihon Buyo talk and demo

I don't need much of an excuse to wear a kimono so when my good friend Hong mention this event, I thought why not!

I have only seen Japanese Dance on YouTube and on TV but never in real life so this seem like an ideal time to learn some culture. In addition, I will be meeting a national living treasure from Japan so extra bonus.

So after both of us got changed at Kings Place toilets (using our in depth knowledge of toilet kitsuke) we waited at Hall 2. We got there at 15.00 because Hong got an email from the Japan Foundation to say that they were overbooked. Well we were not going to stand up for the whole performance so we got there early.

There were three performances by three performers, the first performance was Shichifukujin performed by Nishikawa Senzo X in Su-odori. Which meant he was wearing a montsuki and hakama and used only the sensu as prop. Would you believe he is 82 years old!



The second performance was Urashima performed by Nishikawa Minosuke, who is the son of Senzo. I think this was done in Koten Buyo and involved costume change mid dance.



And the final performance was Tenaraiko performed by Onoe Yukari. She was from another school of dance and this was performed in Sosaku Byuo. No costume change but there was more movement in her dance as opposed to the first two.

After the three performance, Minosuke came on stage (after removing his costume and make up) to intrepret some dance movements. He then invited three groups of five volunteers to try some of the dance moves. Hong and I volunteered for the third group and we tried to mimic a samurai. I was rubbish but for a few minutes humiliation we both got to keep the sensu!

Then came the question and answer session. I didn't really have anything to ask but someone in the audience felt the need to voice her review of the three dances (hmm what part of question and answer does review come under???). In a nutshell, she didn't like the third one because it did not convey the performer's emotions enough as she was moving her body too much.

So the event was over and since the performers were going to be hanging around the bar of Kings Place. We decided that since we were not going to use the sensu for dance purposes we might has well get them signed by the performers. You never know!

And here they are (left, Onoe Yukari ; middle, Nishikawa Minosuke ; right, Nishikawa Senzo X)



What a fun day and the sensu was a major bonus!