Voyage Junkie

L-R: Katsu, Saya, Mari, Chelsea  On June 25th, we gathered a surprising amount of people together for dinner and karaoke, under the guise of June birthday celebrations.  Birthdays are a great excuse to plan a large party in Japan, not that one needs a great excuse to have a party here.  Especially an all-you-can-eat-and-drink party, otherwise known as tabenomihodai .  We invited a wide range of people, and then some of them invited other people, and we ended up with a group of about 20 for dinner and 14 for karaoke! L-R: Chiko,   , Laura, Dan, Bill, Stephan, Rachael We started the evening at Godmother's Restaurant in Gifu.  Rachael and I found the place a few months back after a fortuitous trip to a mall near her home, where we met Mugi and Sato (featured later in karaoke pictures).  They both speak amazing English, having lived in the States before.  Currently they work for a company called Kobayashi Noodle Co , that develops gluten-free rice noodles of all kinds.  So,

"Don't mind us, we're just putting this back where it belongs."

  On June 12th I took part in another dance concert.  This one was more of a recital than a professional venture like last week's, which meant it was a little more relaxed.  I did still have to go for crazy amounts of rehearsal and tech in one weekend, but at least it was only two days of crazy!  I got to meet a lot of really interesting people from all corners of Gifu and Nagoya.  I'm pictured to the left with my itty bitty fan club. I danced in an improvisational workshop piece set by Haruna and Mikiko of Tokyo.  They have an interesting company called KiriCollage , which you check out via the link (although it is mostly in Japanese).  There's a lot of pictures and video on the site, understandable in any language.  They are both very impressive movers and have spectacular improvisational flow together.  I took two workshops with them back in April, and they came back to Gifu to set a workshop dance with the participants.  I got to play around with lots of adults and k

Nadeshiko, Mako, Rie, Sachiko, me, Yuuko, and Shio On June 5th, I was in my first performance in Japan.  It was a crazy affair of epic proportions.  The process was a mixture of frustration and fun, as were all dance projects I've ever been involved in.  I danced with ModernDanceYou Co, a small company run by an adorable woman in her late 60's named Yuuko.  This makes the company name even cuter, because her name sounds like "You Co." Our dance piece was a reaction to the May 11th earthquake.  I saw the dance as a story of a community dealing with an imminent disaster, one they did not consciously know was coming.  Apparently the lights were a color that accentuated our earth-toned and water-colored costumes, making it appear that half of us were representing the earth and half of us were representing the tsunami. Getting ready was a trip and a half.  I arrived later than the others with Yuuko, and I was still ready a good hour before everyone else.  Below you