"when things get tough, this is what you should do: make. good. art."

[larryhammer]

A little while ago, I developed an obsession with watching YouTube videos of yosakoi dance troupes. This is a genre that fuses traditional Japanese folk dances with modern moves and music, typically performed only in competitions. It developed in Kochi in the 1950s but has spread throughout Japan, with major competitions in Tokyo, Sendai, Sapporo, and Nagasaki, as well as the mother-affair in Kochi.

The typical rules allow for a lot of variation in the music and choreography, not to mention costume, which means there's a lot of experimentation, but a typical performance is five to eight minutes long in three movements to fast-slow-fast music, with melodies that at least allude to the original folk songs it developed from. A defining feature, I should mention, is that dancers have percussion instruments, typically hand clappers but sometimes drums etc.

Some performances I've bookmarked, in no particular order. Most are by a handheld camera from the audience, so expect occasional jittercam and highly variable sound levels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqDHN-LTcYw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXH6CYC-bWY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYvSRT8J9M
    (another of the same troupe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKL55SaNVjg)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niaXI6SgfaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTuMRvSmCQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTpkpWuUVOI

If you want more, click around in YouTube's suggestions, or search for either "Yosakoi" or "よさこい"

---L.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Very different from the dance competition I saw in Yokkaichi a couple of weeks ago - that one was a much smaller local thing and seems to have been a lot more traditional.

[larryhammer]

That sounds like a standard traditional matsuri, ya. What was the music like?

---L.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I iPad-videoed a minute or two of it (not more because I didn't know how people would feel about having me film it). Here's that bit (http://youtu.be/6SGtyxstVao). A lot of the groups seemed to be using the same songs, so I only heard a few different ones.

It was part of a whole weekend festival including lots of drumming, carrying of a couple of altars, lots of food booths, a dragon fight near a local temple, and many people in yukatas (both traditional and the modern style that look like summer pajamas).

[larryhammer]

Coo. Yeah, that looks like very traditional music and dance (complete with tinny p/a sound).

---L.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Some of the tinniness can be blamed on the iPhone, but not all of it!

[larryhammer]

I figured as much. :)

[(Anonymous)]

That's Bon Odori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Festival#Bon_Odori)! (Last week was [O-]Bon.) --Matt

[larryhammer]

Ah -- good to know. (Wasn't sure whether it was O-bon related or a town's/shrine's annual festival.)

---L.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! The people I was there to work with weren't able to give me much explanation. Interestingly, in Yokkaichi, people had three days off from work not around the festival weekend, but after the following weekend.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Bookmarking!

[larryhammer]

Have fun watching when you get a chance.

---L.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of yosakoi until I saw it on your earlier post about it, but it's actually quite addictive...

[larryhammer]

Innit? The varieties of variation, still being worked out on the fly -- plus the question of just how in synch will this next troupe be ...

---L.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

This is really cool!

[larryhammer]

Innit though?

---L.