Okinawa Dancers – Ikebukuro Festival

Last months huge Fukuro Matsuri in Tokyo’s northern Ikebukuro district had the same fantastic Okinawan dancers as the last time I visited the festival in 2010. Okinawan dancing is slow, rhythmic and very colorful. For all the times I have visited Okinawa I have yet to see a real Okinawan dancers in their native land! There is something very “nostalgic” about the sound of this kind of music and it makes even a total foreigner like feel “homesick” for Okinawa. I wonder if other people also feel this?

Okinawan Drummers – Furusato Matsuri

In January I visited the furusato matsuri at Tokyo Dome and saw, among many other things, these Okinawan drummers perform! I have been twice to Okinawa but never seen anything cultural so this was a treat. Scores of drummers and dancers showing us their traditional high stepping dance complete with a very un-japanese drum rhythm, slow and methodical, with high pitched singing voices and the almost drone like string instruments they use. Almost hypnotic. Any man looks better with a drum but I guess these handsome men wouldn’t look bad even without their drums.

I’m posting quite a few photos to give you a sense of how the movement looks like, not sure if it works! The performance took place on a massive stage and I was nowhere near the dancers, luckily though I had my Bigma with me (a Sigma 50-500mm 3.5-6.3 super tele), also known as “Dr. Backercracker” and the “Widow Maker”. A huge lens I bought second hand that I almost never have the energy to carry around with me. My back is thankful to me for not using it too often. It was dark and with a dark lens like this I had to crank the ISO up to almost unacceptable levels to bring the shutter speeds up and above 1/500 (for handheld photography). Enjoy!

Okinawa Skies

Being a mainly inland person myself, having grown up far from the ocean or any major bodies of water I find islands fascinating, the weather, the ocean, the winds, everything is just so different. Japan has its own little paradise in the southern island chain of Okinawa, where I took these photos early this year. I hope I can visit again next year! I don’t remember the spot where I took these, but not far from Onna in central Okinawa, on the main island.