dancing insects

I'm sure I mentioned in a previous post that I took a Japanese dance class while in Japan. I loved it. I loved putting on a yukata (summer-kimono) and tabi (little white slippers) and flailing my fan to and fro.

Our dance class was taught by a woman who was a member of a certain dance club in our town. This dance club was comprised of mostly 60+ women, and a few men, and were dedicated to preserving traditional Japanese dance. There was a very strict head dancer who was a woman probably in her 60s who wore her hair tight back in a bun and had a very severe expression. Not someone to be reckoned with. (If you've ever seen the full "Anne of Green Gables", just picture Catherine the head teacher as a Japanese woman, and you've got a clear picture....)

Seeing as our teacher was part of this dance group, we became sort of half-members of it. I'm sure if we were Japanese ourselves we would have been considered just "beginners" but since we were a completely foreign group, we were only hardly tolerated. There were a few occasions in which we gathered with the whole dance club and danced in a parade or for a festival of some sort. On each of these occasions, I was much dismayed at a certain habit they seemed to have.

They made us wear this:

Now, I don't know about your impressions, but mine were that we looked like a bunch of mosquitoes. I was okay with the "happy coats" we wore - at least that was something that was commonly seen in the festivals...

...but the antennae? What was up with that? It was only outshone by the fiery red lipstick that we were expected to wear as well. Check out those lips!!!

As you may have seen in an earlier entry, I did get the chance to wear a beautiful yukata from time to time, and that made me feel as sweet and doll-like as I could have felt in my big shoulders and relatively light-coloured hair. It was a lovely feeling - if not a little restricting to breathe in...

But alas, it seemed like every time we got together with that dance club, they dressed us up in the insect outfits. Not only that, but we were the only ones wearing the insect-wear. They all got to wear beautiful yukatas.

Some kind of mild punishment perhaps? WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS!!!??

Oh well, we just did the old "grit your teeth and bear it", as anyone else might have done in the same situation. We did perform in those lovely outfits. Yes, on a big stage in a beautiful park during an Iris Festival. The park's fields were covered in beautiful purple and white irises and amidst all the beauty, the insects did their dance. At least it was worth a good story.