MATSURI! Part Two.

After seeing a few floats do their incredible turning maneuver we headed back towards home but had a few adventures on the way. We came upon the float that had been used for the kabuki performance. It was being disassembled and being turned back into a moveable float. All pieces fit together without any nails or screws. It’s a woodworkers dream! Off to the side were the organizers of this float. Dressed in the most colorful outfits, they gestured for us to come over (for what we didn’t know!). They handed us cups of sake! Oh yeah we’ll accept! Kanpai! Now we’re talking and laughing with them and everyone agrees we must take some group photos!

We saw Haruka watching the float being transformed and went with our sake cups to chat with him…

He was excited we got sake and reminded us that this was “his” float! Not HIS float. But the float he is a part of. His float was the one used for kabuki! He explained that it was a great honor for their float to be the kabuki one this year! While we were chatting, the man who helped us locate Haruka that first night came by and joked with us, “oh my best good friends, how’ve you been?! Enjoying matsuri??” Very jovial guy. Maybe he started drinking sake even earlier than us! So he had his shinobue with him and showed me, proudly, he made this one, it’s special for the matsuri, he’ll play it tonight when the floats make their final, fanciest run through the town. So I asked if I could try it. I made a good sound and played a few riffs of trills and bends. His eyes go wide, startled, like, “wow you can play shinobue????!!!” I explain, no not really. I play western flute, am a teacher and also play shakuhachi. I’m just now learning Shinobue. “So please, sensei,” I said, suddenly polite, “can you give me a lesson?” Understand, we’re all a bit tipsy, it’s festival day, we’re all joking and messing with each other. So he took the shinobue and explained a few things: “don’t play too smooth legato like. Play more short cut off endings like this…” and demonstrated. Then handing it back to me, I imitated as precisely as I could. Again, he’s stunned I can do it! He said, “ah I’m a good teacher!!” And I didn’t lose a beat saying, “ah I’m a good student!” Huge laughing from everyone!!!

After our afternoon adventures, we returned to the trailer for a rest, a little nap, snacks, and tea. We knew it’d be a big night: out walking or standing in the cold. We needed to rest.

Sensei invited us to dinner at his house and then afterwards to take us around with his “locals” knowledge of best places to view the floats and fireworks. Dinner was fun! Emi was there, Sherry (Taiwanese interpreter friend), and two more friends of the family (all 20-somethings). We had delicious potatoe dumplings with miso sauce, roasted ginkgo berries, and a hearty soup of udon, chicken and vegetables. Beer. John and I took turns sitting with the 20-somethings at the sunken heated table (kotatsu). So cozy! We talked about music, parties, drinking, and eventually Burningman. Emi and the friends all want to go and had heard of it before. So we answered all their questions and had fun showing pictures of our camp, art cars, the desert, etc.

After dinner everyone was ready for the main events of the matsuri. We bundled up. The rain had stopped but this meant it was even colder! Once out on the street Emi and the other young ones went on their own to a more crowded area. Sensei led us to the best viewing spots to watch the floats as they made the turn off the main road. On the way we had a good tour of the scene with shoppping opportunities and food stalls.

There are 6 floats, each from a different neighborhood, each with their own distinctive colorful sets of outfits, each with their own crew of several hundred people (some are taiko Players, shinobue players. Some are the ones who pull/push the ropes. Some are the manager/money guys. Some have special jobs like clapping wooden clappers/blowing whistles to signal changes. Others are the ones who go under the float to dangerously and quickly position the wooden spindle. Others are special guests, honerees. Or just friends of the crew.) it’s a big parade of people for each float.

The main float event is to stand and watch each one make the turn by the tipping/spinning process we’d seen during the day. We watched this process for the first four floats, about an hour and a half. One float is smaller, one much bigger, the others average sized. Sensei told us that the huge one has a story: they spent too much money making it the biggest and ran out of funds to do the colorful decorations and carvings! So it’s just wood  and some gold. Different and unique from the others.

I have sooo many photos and videos of the floats making their turn, it’s a bit hard to keep them all sorted out. I think this was the big boy float tipping and getting into place to make the turn. In the next two videos you can see (and hear) what happens during the turn. As my sensei explained, the higher pitched music goes on and on while they are adjusting the float to be able to turn. There is a trap door on the roof that guys can climb down to the ground and back up. When it’s all clear to move again, one guy gives the ok signal. This is a simple explanation— it’s a bit more complex. The point is, the music changes. When the float moves, you heat a lower booming drum (O daiko). When the float stops to be spun, you hear higher music (ko-daiko— or in the US we fall it shime, the small drum). The high music also includes kane the small metal gong like instrument, and, while shinobue plays throughout, you can hear it better with the higher drum than when the low drum plays. (Although in this particular clip the shinobue player is taking a break I guess!)  Just a balance thing. For my Taiko friends who play yatai, this is part of the very interesting origins of the song, and it’s traditional, more improvised pacing!!!

….and btw any loud booms you hear in background are not gunshots! Those were  fireworks which went on, off and on, all day and night, with the more constant show later on for an entire hour. More on that later..

Here another good one as they tip the float, good shinobue:

Here’s sensei (in tan jacket) filming the float his son Haruka is inside of, playing Taiko!

Here’s a very short clip of Haruka’s group float. The guys waving lanterns in the front are specially chosen each year— its a once in a lifetime thing. The guy on the top right side is a well known comedian, famous TV personality who comes from Chichibu. This was his year! He really hammed it up and got the crowd going crazy!

After seeing four floats do their thing, sensei gave us a choice: watch the last two, to start walking to the best viewing spot for seeing the fireworks. We’d had enough of the floats so off we went, at a lightning fast past, to beat the crowd, thru every secret alley and back way short cut only a local would know! We ended up on the other side of the train station where a main road had been closed to traffic and the public could walk around to find the most open viewing places. The fireworks were being set off past the hills leading to  the huge park where I had seen the spring flower matsuri in 2012, so I knew the area… bursts of amazing fireworks came and went. Each one was maybe 5-10 minutes long, with way more intensity than a 20 second “finale” on New Year’s Eve or 4th of July show in the states.  In between each burst there was a short pause. It went on pretty much non stop for an hour! We’d read that this matsuri launches about 7000 fireworks in total! It was epic. Videos and photos we took do not do it justice, but here are a few…

When the show was over we said goodnight to sensei and crawled back to our trailer where we could still hear the last few random fireworks. We heard Taiko throughout the night, as Huruka’s group’s float made their way to their huge storage warehouse just around the corner from us.