" - Winnie the Pooh
Arita shrine festival
During the week after our anniversary, Roo and I ventured up to Arita to paint a mug for Chrys. (We've already given it to him so I can spill the beans.) We happened to be in for quite a treat as it was festival day.
When we stopped in for lunch - the Chinese place was actually open that day - the parade started right outside the door. Most of the acts were school kids and drums. Roo was captivated for all of 10-15 minutes before she was ready to go. It was really neat to watch these itty bitty kids playing these huge drums. We caught the beginning of some adults doing it, too. These drums are as big as Roo and they require the whole body to play. The wooden sticks are about 2" in diameter and about 12" long. It takes the whole upper body, abs, arms, back to swing with enough force to make the drum really reverberate. It's really impressive to watch the men do it. They work up quite a sweat and you can see every muscle twinge as they play.
When Roo was bored there, we drove to the other area of town. Here there were dancers with small ceramic plates (dipping dish size for those familiar with Japanese place settings, 3-4" for everyone else) that they hit together in time to music. Roo adored these! We could walk alongside them and they were doting on her and showing her how they played. One woman let Roo hold her dishes, but Roo almost dropped them so it didn't last long. The men and women had different dances and there were even subtle differences in the dances of the different groups, but that may have just been artistic interpretation. The music was piped over speakers that lined the streets.
The shop owners would periodically give one of the dancers an envelope which earned that shop a special dance and a piece of paper to display in the window. I can only assume it was money to be given at the shrine. Some shop owners would invite the dancers inside for a quick bite to eat, sake and beer. They would run in, eat amazingly quickly, and be back outside often in time to dance the next round of music on the speakers - it was playing in a loop with maybe 30s between loops.
All of the dancers wore kimonos. The women only groups wore the full dress kimonos. The men wore the shorter kimonos and often the women in those groups did as well. Footwear were the two-toed socks with rubber soles that would withstand the pavement. The colors and varieties of garb, alone, made the trip worthwhile.
In another area, there were some floats being carried by teams of 2-10 men. We just drove past these so I didn't get a good chance to really check them out, but they were quite ornate and eye-catching. They reminded me of the decorations we saw at Glover Gardens (not the boats, but the smaller ones). I imagine they are all to honor Budda at the shrine so some similarties in design across towns makes sense.
When we stopped in for lunch - the Chinese place was actually open that day - the parade started right outside the door. Most of the acts were school kids and drums. Roo was captivated for all of 10-15 minutes before she was ready to go. It was really neat to watch these itty bitty kids playing these huge drums. We caught the beginning of some adults doing it, too. These drums are as big as Roo and they require the whole body to play. The wooden sticks are about 2" in diameter and about 12" long. It takes the whole upper body, abs, arms, back to swing with enough force to make the drum really reverberate. It's really impressive to watch the men do it. They work up quite a sweat and you can see every muscle twinge as they play.
When Roo was bored there, we drove to the other area of town. Here there were dancers with small ceramic plates (dipping dish size for those familiar with Japanese place settings, 3-4" for everyone else) that they hit together in time to music. Roo adored these! We could walk alongside them and they were doting on her and showing her how they played. One woman let Roo hold her dishes, but Roo almost dropped them so it didn't last long. The men and women had different dances and there were even subtle differences in the dances of the different groups, but that may have just been artistic interpretation. The music was piped over speakers that lined the streets.
The shop owners would periodically give one of the dancers an envelope which earned that shop a special dance and a piece of paper to display in the window. I can only assume it was money to be given at the shrine. Some shop owners would invite the dancers inside for a quick bite to eat, sake and beer. They would run in, eat amazingly quickly, and be back outside often in time to dance the next round of music on the speakers - it was playing in a loop with maybe 30s between loops.
All of the dancers wore kimonos. The women only groups wore the full dress kimonos. The men wore the shorter kimonos and often the women in those groups did as well. Footwear were the two-toed socks with rubber soles that would withstand the pavement. The colors and varieties of garb, alone, made the trip worthwhile.
In another area, there were some floats being carried by teams of 2-10 men. We just drove past these so I didn't get a good chance to really check them out, but they were quite ornate and eye-catching. They reminded me of the decorations we saw at Glover Gardens (not the boats, but the smaller ones). I imagine they are all to honor Budda at the shrine so some similarties in design across towns makes sense.
posted by Wynnie | 23:27
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