There are a lot of big festivals in the world: Carnival, Oktoberfest, Burning Man. The list goes on and on …
and somewhere in the middle of that list is the …
“Numata Kindergarten Dance Festival”.
This is the first of the BIG 3 Events on my calendar: the others being the Numata Matsuri and Kinder-Olympics. My calendar isn’t very big I guess.
I was lucky enough to get free tickets to not one, but two venues this year.
I hear all of you pulling your hair and screaming “No Way!” and “Some people have all the luck!” … and all I have to say is, “Yes Way!!!” and “Yes, I’m usually this lucky on a regular basis!!!” … and yes I usually reply to statements with more exclamation marks than the statement maker used.
It was a 2 day non-stop, full-on, dawn to dusk/dusk to dawn, spectacular, extravaganza that lasted for about 2 hours on Saturday afternoon and 1 hour and 45 minutes on Sunday morning.
The first venue was at the city’s Culture Center. I don’t know who figured out where the center of culture in this city is, but I think it should be a lot closer to my place.
I was a bit late, so the crazy crowds were already stacked and racked inside.
If it was your first time at the big festival, you’d probably expect a lot of kimono wearing fan waving mumbo jumbo … and the dancers didn’t disappoint.
They rocked the house with all their amazing hand and foot work. It was like yoga, but with a pulse!
Next came the parasol toting kimono wearing group. There was a lot of twirling and intricate walking around done.
“Who let the dogs out? … and the parasols?”
Then there were incredible vaudevillians to entertain the crowd. I think the one on the left tried to do a cartwheel!!!
The “Egg Cap Kids” came on to liven up an already ecstatically frenzied crowd.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get more out of hand, “The Rockettes” showed up to show off their fancy dipping and side-to-side moves … while wearing red shoes and everything.
All the dancers’ fluid movements were accompanied by music from the era before words were invented.
It was like poetry and music combined, but without any poetry stuff.
I guess the dancers were so great they made the songs speechless!
When everyone thought it was all over and were ready to take their video cameras and accost strangers on the street with video highlights, the “White Hair Shakers” came out.
And then it was all over and everyone left sweaty and in silence … probably because they’d been dancing in their seats and lost their voices from screaming so much … or were thinking about what to eat for dinner and why the heating in the hall was turned so high.
DAY 2 … tomorrow!
I Am The Cheese 