Labor Day Weekend brings the annual Japanese Festival to the Missouri Botanical Garden. We went on Monday since the earlier days of the weekend were unbearably hot. Unfortunately, things were winding down a bit with one big exception.
The performers of Osuwa Taiko are always the hit of the festival. Osuwa means that the sensei or teacher who founded it was from the town of Suwa, Japan. The letter "O" at the beginning of a word indicates that it is given special respect. For example, the word for tea in Japanese is cha, but everybody calls it ocha because it's a big deal in the culture.
Anyway, taiko is always exciting, as demonstrated in the video below. It also looks physically exhausting and taxing to the memory (no sheet music for these long, rhythmically complex pieces.). We had never seen it performed in the garden's auditorium before. Maybe tomorrow we'll get to the outdoor show.
I'm always afraid that I'll run into my Japanese teacher at this event. She was a taskmistress. Every time I'd make another stupid mistake in class she would glare at me and say hontou? (Really?)
The performers of Osuwa Taiko are always the hit of the festival. Osuwa means that the sensei or teacher who founded it was from the town of Suwa, Japan. The letter "O" at the beginning of a word indicates that it is given special respect. For example, the word for tea in Japanese is cha, but everybody calls it ocha because it's a big deal in the culture.
Anyway, taiko is always exciting, as demonstrated in the video below. It also looks physically exhausting and taxing to the memory (no sheet music for these long, rhythmically complex pieces.). We had never seen it performed in the garden's auditorium before. Maybe tomorrow we'll get to the outdoor show.
I'm always afraid that I'll run into my Japanese teacher at this event. She was a taskmistress. Every time I'd make another stupid mistake in class she would glare at me and say hontou? (Really?)
9 comments:
Swell stills! Verifying video! Outta sight, all of it so wonderful, Bob. Thanks for reminding me how much I have enjoyed Portland Taiko.
Thanks for the video, without it I would only have had a small idea of how impressive it is.
tres bonnes photos, mais la 3eme est superbe, bien dans l'envol des musiciennes. Et merci pour la video, ca donne le ton du spectacle
Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.
I've seen this done once. Very dynamic shots, Bob.
Nice shots! Love the one of them jumping!
Well done. I recently watched drummers at an Asian festival here in Hartford, but my pix were lousy so I deleted them.
These are all great B.
V
Very impressive.
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