bon-odori

just got back from the KL bon-odori festival. it wasn’t quite as i expected.

i was thinking more of slow walks through streets of stalls with food and games to play. then fireworks and all that.

in this event, we had the food stalls. no games. next to them was a stadium field with a raised platform in the middle. we (myself, my colleague Mai, her friend Ain and her sis Muni) were there quite early, so there wasn’t much happening and i thought it wouldn’t be exciting. boy, was i wrong. the crowd hasn’t thickened yet, so we just got ourselves some seats at the stadium’s grandstand and waited. from 5pm to 7pm.

still, while we waited, it was nice to look at the crowd starting to pour in. there were girls in yukatas, girls in goth, girls in pyjamas and pacifiers. it was quite interesting. 😛

when the event actually started, they nicely kept the speeches short and went straight on to the bon-odori dance! basically, on the platforms the drummers will play a beat, accompanied by music from the PA system, with a ring of ‘dancers’ around them. beyond the platform, visitors are also encouraged to form circles around the platform and follow the dancers’ steps as they moved along.

the first round showed that many were still shy, and it took a while to get everyone into the groove of things. i myself had to wait for people to join Mai before i got into the mood. but once it started, it felt exhilirating. the steps in the dances were also very cute, and you can’t help being amused by the throngs of people dancing to them.

the bon-odori performance was repeated 3 times this evening. each performance contained the same 4 songs, each with their different rhythms and steps. each song was repeated twice. my gang and i went down for all performances, and we pretty much memorized the moves at the last one.

in between performances, guest dancers did their thing: the first time was a cultural japanese dance, and the second was a local group dancing our tradisional malay dance to some song about selangor. needless to say, we skipped the second.

at the end of everything, everyone was sweaty and exhausted. the crowd then joined the huge queue of cars trying to leave the area. i’d say everyone was eager to get home, since we saw two pileups along the federal highway involving the patrons (we could tell from the yukatas). the festival was held in shah alam, by the way.

next year, i’ll be more prepared. maybe even rent a yukata. 🙂