Kagurazaka Awaodori Kids – 2

More photos of the Kagurazaka Awaodori festival kids and the adult volunteer musicians helping out. I have blogged about this area before, the nearby Iidabashi Canal (go have a look if you don’t remember the post).

I usually go trigger happy at these events and end up with a couple of hundred of snap shots which leaves me with a lot of work afterward sorting and editing my shots, but it’s always worth it with kids and animals. You never know what you might catch and with digital it is so easy to shoot a lot. There are other, very famous photographers who did it the other way around and used film cameras that took so long to set up that portraits ended up looking like landscape photography, vast, silent and still, like the works of Sally Mann. For these pictures, I was really impressed with the girl in the first photo, she had a huge responsibility as dance leader of a whole troupe (even parents had joined in at the end). I wouldn’t be surprised if she is destined for greatness!

And how about the the older man with the flowers in his hair! He really kept that look throughout the entire evening, not smiling once at anyone, except for when he passed my gorgeous lady friend and broke out in a little grin. The kids naturally aren’t schooled in the instruments of the festivals so these adult volunteer musicians jump in and help out with their music. They later took part in the grown-up festival as well! Talk about stamina! Japanese festivals brings out all kinds of people and it is evenings like this I always remember why I love Tokyo so much!

For festivals like this there really is no excuse for not doing some video photography as well, and next time I will definitely leave the D700 at home and bring a camera with video capabilities like the D3s. Luckily there were 19 uploads on Youtube when I searched for this festival, so head on over there and see if you can find a video with good sound (the images you can get over here)!

Kagurazaka Awaodori Kids – 1

Once a year there is a fantastic, short but fun, two day festival of Awaodori music and dancing at Kagurazaka in central Tokyo. Kagurazaka is an interesting place in itself, with a lot of that pre-war down town Tokyo feeling lost to development and concrete in so many other places around the city. Kagurazaka is also traditionally the home of Tokyo’s French expat community: certainly all the French I know in Tokyo lives in this area.

Once upon a time this place was famous for geisha and entertainment and although there’s still a few geisha houses left, serving some very expensive kaiseki eateries in the area, you are extremely unlikely to ever see a geisha out on foot.

But back to the Awaodori festival, which is easily the best kind of festival in the country, at least in my opinion. The real festival starts at 19:00 and finishes at 21:00 but before that there is childrens festival where all the dancers represent local schools and kindergartens. Naturally the musicians are volunteer adults but it is so much fun to go and see the little kids from 2 to 12 taking part in the festival. Don’t miss it if you’re ever in Tokyo around the end of July.

The kids in these pictures are from a local elementary school and a local kindergarten. They did a great job dancing and in one case, shouting!

I took these with a relatively short lens, the 135mm Nikon I used for the bonodori posts earlier this week. As I took the photo of the boy in the second picture I remember thinking he was the most handsome child I have ever seen, until I spotted the girl in the fourth picture!

More on the kid dancers and the grown up festival this weekend! Enjoy!

More Bonodori Dancers

One thing that I would not like to be accused of, is ageism. There’s a lot of kids on Tokyobling but how about some photos of slightly older people? Here are more Bonodori dancers from the festival at Kishibojin near Ikebukuruo last weekend.

Bonodori is slow and rhythmical with quite complicated dance moves, even though it sure doesn’t look very difficult. On the central dias around which the dancers revolve there are official dancers showing the moves and the dance patterns for the general dancers below to follow. Even further up on the dias there is a taiko drummer in some cases, taking care of the rhythm. Taiko (big wooden drums) are usually quite flamboyant and like to show off. Since an integral part of taiko drumming is taking the proper poses for the performance they are usually great models. Just look at the young taiko drummer in the first picture! Not only was he great up at the platform, but he also danced perfectly. And just look at that angelic face… Caravaggio would have have killed for models like this!

There are traditional and not so traditional songs performed at all bonodori festivals. Did you notice that all the dancers have open hands, except for the one in the third picture? I took that photo during one of the newer dances, the “Doraemon Ondo”, which is based on the hugely popular cartoon character Doraemon (a huge blue alien cat). The songs are sung in a voice similar to Doraemon in the cartoon and dancers make fists of their hands to symbolize the chubby little paws of the huge cat. Fun. There are other non-traditional “ondo” as well, for example the Pokemon ondo. Naturally, the kids love it.

The fantastic looking old ladies are really tough. This evening was a scorcher, and even though temperatures reached 36 degrees celsius they danced without breaks for two hours! Just look at the smile of the lady in the last picture, as the last song finished. Pretty good for an 85 year old!

Please forgive me for sneaking in one picture of a cute girl even in this post, I just couldn’t resist it! Just have a look at picture number six and tell me she isn’t gorgeous! Enjoy!

Brian Muir

At Tokyo Wonder Festival 2010 (previously blogged about here) I almost stumbled into the fantastic artist Brian Muir. Not many people would spot him in a crowd but his work has been seen and enjoyed by millions of people: he is one of the most famous movie prop sculptors in the world! Arguably his most famous creation is the mask of Darth Vader from the Star Wars trilogy.

Prop sculptors are responsible for taking the paper designs of creators and designers and turning them into usable 3D sculptures. Have a look at Brian’s web site for a full list of his creations so far. I didn’t know it at the time, but he is also the sculptor behind the stunning Dark Crystal movie: one of my all time favorites. I have several books featuring his work at home but I had no idea he would be in Japan, otherwise he would have had a lot signing to do. If you are into movies or design or art at all, take a moment to visit his website, it has a lot of fantastic material. If you are a fan of Star Wars you really must get his book, In the Shadow Of Vader which has some really interesting behind the scenes photographs, stories and comments on the suits and props used in the original movies, I’m a big fan and most of the stuff in this book I had never even heard about before.

Now, I have been interpreting and helping out with enough celebrities these last few years that I know how tiresome and hard it can be to do these publicity tours, even without clueless fans clustering around you. I approached Brian from the side and sort of hung around until I was spotted by his Japanese assistant and sort of forcibly introduced to the great man himself and his beautiful wife. Behind ever great man there is a great woman! I don’t know how they could travel around the world and still be able to have a great conversation with fans like me! Jetlag has nothing on the power of this couple! I managed to get sneak shot of Brian demonstrating the obvious fact that the man who sculpted Darth Vader is not to be messed with: a thumb is enough to bring any fan to his knees!

Oh, and if any editor at the Daily Mail is reading this, I already have your headline: “British Artist Terrorise Hapless Japanese Fans with Vader Thumb Trick”. I took Mr Muir’s portrait with a Nikon 50mm f1.4 lense, straight from camera. One does not photoshop an artist. Enjoy!