Yuzakoi Festival

On Sunday I performed at the Yuzakoi Festival, which was held in a town called Yuza in northern Yamagata Prefecture. I performed with both yosakoi teams, Kafumai and Saihoku Repputai.

At first, we were going to perform Repputai without any help from the Hokkaido people. But while we were in Sapporo last month, many Repputai people from Hokkaido said that they wanted to come to Yuza too. Of course, it is difficult to travel so far on such short notice. Nine people came last week to perform with us, which is still a lot I think. We practiced together on the Saturday, and then had a party in Kisakata. I was finally able to order a Repputai t-shirt and snapshots of our team in Sapporo. I hope they arrive soon.

On Sunday morning, just like last year, it was pouring with rain. We went to Yuza and changed into our Kafumai costumes. Because of the rain, the whole festival was held inside a gym, but the changing rooms were in another building, so all us performers got wet anyway. We performed Kafumai and then those of us who are in Repputai as well had to quickly go change our costumes. We had quite a bit of time, but becaue the Repputai costume for this year is similar to a kimono it takes a while to put on.

After dancing Repputai I had to change my costume again. And dance again. I had a few minutes to quickly eat and then I changed my costume again and performed Repputai one more time. After that was the free dance and the prize giving.

Now, last years winning team had become much better over the last year, so we were sure that they would get first place again. Everyone was quite surprised when that team was awarded second place. I was looking about the hall wondering which of the teams I hadn't seen would be awarded first, when the (superintendent of Yuza?) called "Saihoku Repputai." We won! First place! We got a big trophy and, bizarrely, an MD Player. I don't know what we are going to do with the MD PLayer since the team leader already has one we use. Sell it and share the money around? But Kafumai got a stranger prize. As a 'thank you for participating' we received a box of raw fish. Um yeah, cheers.