Thursday, October 22, 2009
October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 6
We headed downriver to Matsukawa, the village of Oda, who have their matsuri during the daytime.
The village no longer has its own kagura group, so Kamiko Kagura group from Hamada were playing.
The dance being performed when we arrived was Gojin, concerning the 5 elements played out as 5 kami with territorial disputes. One of the kami is a buffoon, seen here with a long trail of green snot hanging from his nose. The group leader told us that Gojin was traditionally the final dance in a kagura performance, but nowadays the finale is usually Yamata no Orochi, as it was today.
It was a really great performance of the dance, unusually with all 8 serpents. It's one thing to see this dance performed on a stage, quite another to literally have it in your face. This first video shows some of the choreoraphed dance of the 8 snakes. As far as I know there is nothing else like this anywhere else in japan. If anyone has seen anything like this, please let me know.
This next video shows Susano battling the serpents. At one point he seems to be overpowered, but fear not, he triumphs.
2 of the heads of the serpent were laid right at our feet.
Labels:
Iwami Kagura,
matsukawa,
Matsuri,
video,
yamata no orochi
Saturday, October 17, 2009
October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 5
After Ichiyama matsuri we stopped in at Kawado, the village just across the river from mine, for the last matsuri of the night.
I've watched hundreds of kagura dances, and yet am still learning something new almost everytime I see a dance. Every village has developed their own variations on the dances and stories, and I suppose I have also become more knowledgable about details.
The last dance we watched was Shoki, a 2 person dance with Shoki and a single demon.
Shoki was a "demon-quelling" Chinese God who has become equated with Susano in Japan. The Susano and Shoki masks are interchangeable, though here at Kawado Shoki did not where a mask at all.
I learned an interesting thing about Kawado's version of Shoki. The person chosen to play Shoki is not set. It is chosen each year by the group depending on whoever has had good fortune that year. Usually that means someone who has gotten married or had a child. This years dancer had recently celebrated the birth of his fourth child.
In this video there is something I hadn't seen before. After the demon has pranced about the stage, Shoki climbs up and starts shaking the tengai over the demon. The tengai is the canopy over the kagura stage, and the kami descend through the paper streamers to possess the dancers.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Heights of Eternal Hope for the Future
Miraishin no Oka is a 5,000 sq. m. sculpture park on the hilltop overlooking Kosan-Ji on Ikujima, a small island in the Inland Sea off Hiroshima.
The brainchild of Environmental sculptor Kazuto Kuetani, all the sculptures and the marble that coveres the hillside was shipped from the Carrera quarry in Italy, where he has worked for the past 18 years.
The only way to visit the hill is through Kosan-Ji, which charges 1,200 yen entrance, but what you get for that price is quite astounding.
On a sunny day the hilltop is blinding. There is also an Italian restaurant in the park.
The island can be reached easily from Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku or Ohnomichi Town in Hiroshima.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 4
Ichiyama Hachimangu is a much bigger shrine than the one we just visited over the river in Eno. We come to most matsuris at Ichiyama as a friend, Toshi, dances there.
When we got there they were still dancing Iwato.
Toshi dances the character Ame no Koyane, the mythical ancestor of the Nakatomi. Its quite a hard part to dance as Koyane is an old man so the dancer must move and dance with bent legs all the time.
Toshi danced in the next dance too, which must have been tough as kagura dancing is a hard workout. He played Hachiman's sidekick in the Yumi Hachiman dance.
Around 2 a.m., not long after the demons entrance we headed off to the next matsuri....
Labels:
Ichiyama,
Iwami Kagura,
Matsuri
Monday, October 12, 2009
October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 3
Our next matsuri was in Eno, a small village on the Yato River. This was our first time to matsuri here. It's a fairly new shrine, established under the orders/instructions of Omotojin during shamanic possession at Omoto kagura across the river in Ichiyama. Next month there will be Omoto Kagura here.
The matsuri was well attended! After sitting down we were given 2 steaming bowls of wild boar stew, and later warmed Omiki, the sacred sake. :)
The first dance after the ceremonial dances (shinji) was Iwato.
Something I've never seen before in performances of Iwato was that during Uzume's dance the other "kami" joined in playing the intruments.
Playing before the home crowd is always tough as locals are the toughest critics.
The next dance was Yumi Hachiman with the usual spectacular demons entrance. Around midnight we had to leave as there were 2 more matsuris to visit this night.
Labels:
eno,
Hachiman,
Iwami Kagura,
iwato,
omoto kagura
Friday, October 9, 2009
Princess Yakami
Yakami Hime was a beautiful princess ( as all such princesses must be) in the land of Inaba, now western Tottori. She appears in the old myth The White Rabbit of Inaba.
In Izumo, Okuninushi's 80 brothers, known as the Yasogami, head off to Inaba to try and win the princess's hand. Okuninushi was relegated to baggage carrier for his brothers.
On a beach they discover a sick rabbit, and the yasogami are cruel to it. When Okuninushi arrives he helps the rabbit, and seeing his kindness, Yakami hime falls in love with him.
Eventually Okuninushi marries her, but later dumps her so he can marry one of Susano's daughters.
The photos are from the kagura dance Yasogami, performed here by the Tsuchi Kagura Group at last years Gotsu kagura Festival.
In Izumo, Okuninushi's 80 brothers, known as the Yasogami, head off to Inaba to try and win the princess's hand. Okuninushi was relegated to baggage carrier for his brothers.
On a beach they discover a sick rabbit, and the yasogami are cruel to it. When Okuninushi arrives he helps the rabbit, and seeing his kindness, Yakami hime falls in love with him.
Eventually Okuninushi marries her, but later dumps her so he can marry one of Susano's daughters.
The photos are from the kagura dance Yasogami, performed here by the Tsuchi Kagura Group at last years Gotsu kagura Festival.
Labels:
Gotsu,
inaba,
Iwami Kagura,
okuninushi,
tsuchi,
yakamihime,
yasogami
Monday, October 5, 2009
Tallship Nadezhda
The 109 metre sail-training ship NADEZHDA out of Vladivostock is making a courtesy visit to Hamada this weekend.
There was a very festive atmosphere with local people putting on kagura and folk songs,
I spent an afternoon sailing on a similar boat a few decades ago when I lived in Falmouth while it was hosting the Tall Ships Race. Coincidentally that boat was also built at the Gdansk Shipyards in Poland.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura.
At least it does in my neck of the woods.
We decided to head to the matsuri at Imada. Imada, like my village, is not a place you pass through on the way to somewhere. It's out of the way, small, and quiet.
It was a nice warm evening, and the full moon shone through the mantles of mist that lay upon the mountains around the shrine.
As soon as we arrived 2 cold beers were pressed into our hands. Later we were given steaming bowls of oden and more beer. I like village matsuri's :)
The atmosphere was nice and relaxed and there was plenty of space in the shrine to seit. Outside local people had octopus balls, yakitori, and oden cooking. Lots of kids running around as this is one of the few nights of the year they get to stay up all night.
We spent a good hour chatting with Mr. Yamanaka, a local councillor and a trove of information on local history. Several times he grovelled on the floor to show just how low in the social hierarchy Imada was. He seemed curiously proud of how the local people were historically the bottom rung of the lowest class. He also was able to fill me in with some details of a local shinwa. He was very interested in reintroducing the old ways of growing rice and food, in symbiotic relationship with animals, wild and domestic.
The kagura was good. Imada plays the older 6-beat style, and Mr. Yamanaka bemoaned the loss of traditions in the newer more popular 8 beat kagura.The group only perform once a year, but played consientiously.
This short video is from the Iwato dance and Uzume is dancing to entice Amaterasu out of the cave.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
The Candid Bride
I was in Hiroshima's Shukkeien gardens last spring and a couple were having their wedding photos taken there.
I'm not usually very comfortable taking pictures of people, but it was a public place, and my camera has a decent zoom, so.....
Friday, October 2, 2009
Busy, busy, busy...
Millet hung up to dry.
Been very busy this past month. I don't grow any rice, so I haven't needed to harvest that like everyone else round here. Have been receiving bags of really fresh rice from friends and neighbors though.
I've been busy dealing with the surplus of tomatoes, peppers etc, so been doing a lot of canning.
And now the matsuri season begins. Harvesting mostly done all the village shrines will be having their annual matsuri this month. Tomorrow, saturday, we have eight matsuris going on within a ten minute drive of our place.
Busy, busy, busy......
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