Nagoya Domatsuri (Read to hear about dancing superhero battles, post office teams and when ABBA met some pirates)

This weekend I stayed around Nagoya. On Sunday I met up with Elspeth and we headed to the YahooBB store so that she could register for internet. The Sakae store had claimed to have English speaking staff...but they lied. Luckily, Elspeth rocked the Japanese and was even able to understand all of the technical lingo. I sat there for moral support and tried not to laugh when the saleslady tried to tell Elspeth that if I got internet too, we'd get a gift certificate, which we could spend on food (she actually mimed the eating).



Afterwards we got some cheap udon (250yen) at our favourite ticket restaurant (a chain with cheap yet amazing Japanese food) and then checked out Loft (really cool and hip multi-purpose store). As we walked out of Loft, we heard the music of the domatsuri. This dance festival had been going on since Friday and it was the last day. Get this - hundreds of dance teams travel to Nagoya to dance and they get 4 minutes to show off their stuff. This was the most amazingly well organized event.



Each team arrived (from subway??) and got in line. There were never more than 5 teams waiting and each had a designated area. The team on the 'dance stage' would introduce themselves, dance (how they organized the music, I have no clue) and then walk off one side. The next team in line would move directly onto the stage and get in position. It was cool to see.

The teams ranged from university teams to community teams (with kids) to company teams (my favourite was the post office team...more on them later). They had colourful and interesting costumes (some more traditional, some dressed like ABBA met some pirates) and most used these hand clacker things that slapped together (kind of like castinets) and made a noise. Some had huge flags, taiko drums, fans, ribbons, superheroes (more on them later), and battle scenes (hahaha!).



[This was one of our favourite teams because it was the POST OFFICE team! We called them that because of the red T-like symbol on their outfits and then found out that they ACTUALLY were the post office team! Yeah, go post office...you put stamps on all of my postcards!]

[The post office team in action]

The team that got the most points from Elspeth and I was the team that had the superhero! Out ran this guy in a neon orange unitard thing and started lipsynching to the 'superhero speech' in the music. Then, from the back came the evil villian with a rake-like weapon and they had a vicious battle that of course, ended with the superhero winning!


One of the last teams we saw was the ABBA meets the Pirates group. They said something about having latin music and all of the girls were wearing white bellbottoms and colourful sequined tops. The guys were wearing black shirts and pirate-like scarves on their heads. It was all very confusing, yet completely entertaining.


It was an enjoyable experience. 4 minutes was just the perfect amount of time to see each group perform. I leave you with the very happy, and energetic team from a university. Their announcer guy was amazing and even danced along from the sidelines. You can hear how enthusiastic he is in the video.