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November 10th 2007

Published: November 16th 2007

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Jennie T

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the cast of "Cinderella"

The last couple of weeks have been very busy with all the school culture festivals happening. The culture festivals, or “bunkasai,” are annual performances to showcase the school’s and community’s talent. As soon as the undoukai are over with in September, preparation for the bunkasai in November starts. I was involved in three different bunkasai this year: my junior high school’s, my high school’s, and the Yuge island community bunkasai. So, I had a lot of preparation to do too.

For the junior high school’s bunkasai, I was directing the play “Cinderella” with my third year class, coaching the English speeches, and playing the tone chimes with the music class (as I did last year). The play was a major undertaking, but it turned out to be a great performance in the end. Of course, the play was all in English, so I’m sure most of the audience couldn’t understand it. But, thankfully my third-year students are a funny, creative bunch of kids, so their actions and gestures alone were enough to entertain the crowd. The funniest part of it was that we did quite a bit of gender-bending with the cast of characters. It wasn’t my idea, but one

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The glass slipper fits, and the prince proposes!

of the boys desperately wanted to play the step-mother, another boy wanted to be the fairy god mother, and one of the girls wanted to be the prince. So, everyone got a kick out of seeing the boys in dresses.

For the high school’s bunkasai, I sang with the Yuge chorus and accompanied them with my violin. I also sang an English song with one of my high school English classes. The performances at the high school bunkasai weren’t as interesting as the junior high school’s, but the good thing about the high school’s bunkasai is that the different clubs set up food stalls outside the school to raise money for their club activities. So, I was sure to fill up on chocolate-covered bananas and French fries before the festival was over.

Finally, for the Yuge island community bunkasai, I also sang with and accompanied the Yuge chorus. Lots of traditional Japanese music and performance groups from the area performed at the community bunkasai, so it was interesting to watch. Also, a few touring artists came to perform at our community bunkasai. Two young women, probably in their 20’s, from Osaka and trained in tsugarujamisen (a type of

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the evil step-sisters eves-dropping

shamisen) performed. They played a lot of traditional festival-type songs, and also some contemporary songs. They were extremely talented shamisen players, and their singing was lovely too. One other performer, a rakugo comedian, came. Rakugo is like the Japanese version of stand-up comedy, but rakugo comedians always sit on a cushion rather than stand up. It is kind of like comic storytelling. The rakugo comedian sits on a cushion and uses only his fan and sometimes a handkerchief as props for telling a story.
So, it’s kind of like a challenge to see how creative the comedian can be with the only a couple simple props.

So, now that all the bunkasai are finished, I finally have some free time for myself. But my toilet seat heater has been turned on…meaning the cold season has officially begun. I guess I’ll be turning on the kotatsu before long too. And then I’ll be spending my free time hibernating under the kotatsu. But for now, I am enjoying the last bit of autumn weather.

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