More Kusunokiren – Public Officials Dancing

There’s something very endearing in the idea that public officials would don costumes, rehears for months and months and then join festival, even outside their own communities, to entertain the public, on their free time! Here’s more photos of the Awaodori team Kusunokiren that I blogged about yesterday. This is taken from the mid-to-end section of their performance in which the male dancers are doing a particularly stupid looking routine, failing completely at imitating the beautiful dance moments earlier by the ladies. This is done on purpose of course, it’s comedy in the form of dance, and in typical Japanese fashion is done earnestly and orderly. There’s a few teams out there that does this particular routine and I love it every time I see it. The whole idea of Awaodori is that it’s supposed to be funny. It’s basically an image of how serious court dancing would look if performed by drunken town people having a laugh. In the whole world I have never seen anything like it, which is why I can’t stop blogging about it!