| | Just to give y'all the results of the dance fest I participated in over the weekend: The festival is called "Yoi Yoi Onna Masturi" - "Ecstatic Dancing Women Festival" (or something. My friends couldn't figure out the first kanji ^^;) It's a new fest Beppu sponsors, which would explain the lack of facilities for participants - the crew I was part of prepped in the bathroom of the main train station (large mirrors. about the only redeeming feature of the place). I think we freaked out the women who came in to use the bathroom as something other than a dressing room. I don't know why - we were just eight gals putting on makeup. And face bling. It could be that they were put off by the fact it was three furreners (one from Hungary, one from Oman, and me, the American) and five Japanese girls - mixed groups draw a lot more attention in Beppu for some reason.
We didn't win the contest (placed 4th out of 8 teams. T_T). I would have thought belly-dancing would be a shoo-in for the fan-service vote, if nothing else. Maybe we were wearing too much clothing. Our street performance went badly - they started with the wrong song FOUR TIMES, which made one of the gals freak out a bit (she had stage fright to begin with, the poor thing!) Our stage routine was freakin' awesome though. (According to other people - all I remember thinking is, "Okay, hip, hip, arm roll, spinny, spinny, walk-walk, ohfuckmewhatcomesnext?!?)
I was upset that my teacher and her partner came in last - they had a fantastic samba routine that required so much more skill than anything I saw on the stage that night. *harumph!* Maybe the judges couldn't take the smexiness. Our group was yelling catcalls after they were done, and that seemed to disturb the older Japanese folks around us.
My school (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University) was well-represented: the Indonesian student union did a marvelous folk dance in full costume (four different costumes!), and one of the Japanese culture clubs did a high-energy dance called "Yosho-koi" which is impossible to describe; you have to see it for yourself. Both of them placed second.
The winning team was from one of the local strip joints, and I think they won just based on all the overdone (yet scanty) costumes the girls were wearing - their routine was like something out of Rocky Horror picture show with the wrong soundtrack (a fusion of Star Wars and Phantom of the Opera. Exactly. WTF?!?)
At least I got a trophy plushy out of it. And one more thing - after the award ceremony, the photographer for the local paper asked OUR group to pose for a series of pictures, not the winning one! *smug face*
In other news: Michy had her baby shower over the weekend. I'm going to miss her having the child and everything, and that depresses me.
I have made ZERO progress on a paper my adviser has asked me to write for a journal - I need to talk to my adviser to see if he can help me out, but I'm scared to go because i don't want him to know how little I have on paper. :slamhead:
PICTURES:   
   
   |
| | Posted 12/2/2007 7:23 PM - 87 Views - 4 eProps - 13 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
