Individual Style

Most of the people in last weekend's parades were wearing blends of green, white and orange. Not me - not my colors. But even if you chose the traditional tones, you could stand out by riding a unicycle with flawless posture. (That's the Missouri Botanical Garden float.) Or, you could throw off marching band discipline, turn your face to the sky and assault the heavens with your booming.        

Zombie Taiko Drummer & Friends

These shots are from the outdoor taiko performance later in the day. It was not until I started to edit that I noticed the performer in the orange jacket periodically rolled his eyes way up, to the point the irises were almost invisible. Spooky, No idea what it meant.       

Taiko!

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 Beat

At the end of the Annie Malone parade last weekend, some participants hung out on the side streets, keeping the beat going and thumping it off the surrounding office buildings. This young man was with a group of percussionists and dancers in the courtyard of Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building. It is of great architectural significance, being one of the first couple of steel-framed skyscrapers in the world. (Eleven stories was a skyscraper in 1890.) These kids put on a great improv dance show for their own pleasure but I was fascinated by this young man's disengagement. I liked his crooked yellow bow tie and the way the light played off his face, too.

TOMORROW: Poker Face