Dance dance dance!

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 can see the main reason why: the crazy amounts of makeup they wear combined with the way they wear it.  First, they draw large lines with eyeliner halfway up the top lid, and on the cheekbone under the eye.  Then they stick huge fake eyelashes on at the eyeliner mark (remember, this is halfway up the lid), and draw another line from the edge of the eyelashes out.  Then they color the space between their actual eye and the eyelashes with eyeliner.  They add a little brown color to the eyebrow, the remaining part of the eyelid, and the bridge of the nose.  The final touch (sadly missing from these photos) is a dab of white at the corners of the eyes, both inside and outside.  The overall effect is indeed a wider, more visible eye, so I can understand why they do it.   

Sachiko nicely modeled the makeup for me.  I've been in a lot of dance performances, and I know many people use fake eyelashes and intense makeup with large theaters, but I've never seen anything quite like this before!

One thing I will say: they are efficient with technical rehearsals.  The day of the show, we arrived and each piece had a tech time of about 20 minutes.  We were on the stage and off within that time, which included a run of the piece with lights.  I will have to wait until I see the piece to judge the quality, but I was pretty impressed.  In the States we're in tech rehearsals a full week before a show, at least in school.  In the "real world" of dance, sometimes the techs can be shorter, but usually they take a lot longer than 20 minutes.  I like how streamlined it was, and how easy the artists were about their lights.  In the future when my work is being lighted, I will try to remind myself of the behavior I witnessed at this concert.  For the sanity of everyone involved, it would be a good thing if every artist strove to behave more like their Japanese colleagues.

One final thing: before we start a run-through, the teacher says "onegaishimasu" and we say it back, which acknowledges that we are there and ready to do the work the teacher is asking for.  Onegaishimasu means "I make a humble request," similar to the English "if you don't mind, let's get started."  It acknowledges that something is being asked for (like the four-hour rehearsals and endless changes we went through for this piece).  These are greetings said in school before each class (and followed at the end with "arigatou gozaimasu," or thank you very much).  We exchanged these greetings with the stage hands, too.  I know it's a formality, but it has the effect of making people feel more appreciated, which in turn puts everyone in a better mood.  This is invaluable for long days of work in theaters, where the tech people hold your artistic fate in their capable hands, and the dancers are the lifeblood of your work.  It makes sense to honor your workers with a little courtesy and politeness, to show how thankful you are that they are choosing to be there for you.

That's all for now!  I leave you with the politeness of Japanese society.  I will try to post the video soon!  Look forward to that, and to my future post about my second performance, coming up on Sunday.  This one I'll be dancing with two improvisation artists from Tokyo!