Street Performers Festival
This past weekend we had the pleasure of hosting Ben and Jill, friends from Chicago, in Gifu. After attending many festivals over the past few months, I decided that a Japanese festival would be just the way to introduce them to the culture we have been living in for the past few months. As I did a little research, I happened upon the Street Performers Festival in Nagoya and it sounded like just the thing.
Each year at Osu-Kannon Temple in Nagoya, a street performers festival is held. They call it the Osu Daido-Chonin Matsuri. Street performers from all over Japan descend upon Nagoya to entertain the masses. And it was, in fact, masses!!
This was definitely the most crowded festival we have attended so far. And, with our limited Japanese, we weren’t able to decode the schedule of events. So, we just generally wandered and stopped wherever the huge crowds were gathered to find out what they were all watching. Generally, we didn’t get fantastic seats, but we were able to see some of the acts.
We saw this fantastic juggler and magician. His act wasn’t anything terribly spectacular, but he sure did know how to work the crowd. He had everyone laughing and having a good time.
Then we saw belly dancing. At one point, Jill and I both sort of looked at one another and said, “Yeah, I could make my fat jiggle like that too.” The thing I always love about belly dancers though, is their confidence. Sure, they have a little pudge, but they aren’t afraid to let it hang out, dance around, and, even, jiggle a bit.
We watched part of a hip-hop dancing competition. I’ve gotta say, for being a bunch of Japanese high school students, these girls could really move. We took a video of their performance, and it will be up on YouTube soon.
We saw naked gold people doing this whole freestyle dance number. When we initially saw them, they all had these jumbo fiery torches. Obviously, with fire and nakedness, they drew quite the crowd.
There was taiko drumming, both an adult group and a childrens group. The kids were actually pretty good, and irresistibly cute! This one little girl in the middle was so much fun to watch. She was all smiles. Sometimes she would start concentrating too hard and lose her smile, but then she would look out at the crowd again, probably see her parents, and another broad grin would cross her face.
Then, to end the day on a spectacular note, we saw this amazing bamboo balancing act. A big group of men held this large ladder up in the air using these large hooks. Once the ladder was standing tall and straight, various performers would climb to the top and strike all sorts of poses. Pretty dangerous, with only concrete below, but also really fun to watch.
A good day and a great festival to visit. Filled with tons of oh-my-goodness moments.