On July 24th, I participated in the parade of the Yamato Bon Odor Festival. Bon Odori is a style of dancing and for the last two months, we have been having practices every Thursday in order to learn about 12 of the dances. I missed about 5 of those practices so it's good we only did 2 dances the entire hour we performed.
We had to wear a traditional summer yukata during our performance. Of course, our yukata are red, white and blue! On Saturday's performance there were about 50 Americans. We had to meet early to have someone dress us in our yukata. It's more complicated than it looks, but the red obi has a pre-made bow so we don't have to worry about that. It just ties around our waist. My shoes are white and Nicole's are red because I had to order man shoes. Darn you Japan and your land of tiny tiny people and feet!
We lined up along the parade route and then we started dancing! Circle, circle, arm, arm, side, side, price is right display, display, elbow, elbow, safe, repeat! That's what I kept saying in my head. :) We followed the Japanese AWA ladies in their yellow yukata. We got lots of claps from the people watching the parade...some more of a little pity clap I think. "Look at the Americans, good try." I'm sure our dances were much simpler than the other groups dancing!
And what do you do at a festival after you are done performing! Drink of course! And sweat, a lot! It was in the upper 90s and over 100 a few days that week!
Ann found lots of uses for the yukata. Beer and chi-hi storage! Since the bus dropped us off at the gym on base when we were finished AND the O'Club is closer than the house...we continued our drinking in our yukata. Tommy and Maki were a little confused at first.
The last picture is with the Atsugi Base Commanding Officer and Executive Officer. There were performing with the JMSDF groups in the parade as well! Such a fun night, but I was happy to get home and get that yukata and obi off!
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