Field Trips

I must say, for rural Japan, they sure do have some nice field trips. Back when I was in school, we used to go to the zoo. Every year.

But one of my schools here has sent students to England and Germany, not to mention every major city in Japan.

And 2 weeks ago, the entire school went to see John Neptune perform. It was just before 1st term tests so I think it was meant to calm their nerves. Whatever the reason, it was a great show.

Choreographing a dance with a language barrier

There's a block party coming up in June and Ryohei--the b-boy I met at last month's hip hop show--and I are putting a routine together. Despite the language barrier, things have been coming along pretty smoothly. We put this first part together in about 10 minutes:

I find that amazing. Not the dance itself, but the fact that we were able to choreograph it so quickly while not speaking each others' respective language. The routine isn't complex, but we literally only communicated using the music and the moves. It was equally created so we both had to do some "talking" and "listening".

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said that "music is the universal language of mankind". Does that make dancing its sign language?

Jamosa Show in Morioka

This past weekend, a bunch of us Western folk met up in Morioka, Iwate's Capitol. We kicked it in the city (its 300,000 population seems huge in comparison to my town), traded city/school war stories and hit up a show. I didn't know much about the line up but was pleasantly surprised: 4 DJ's, 2 rap groups, 2 3&B groups, 5 dance acts, including one that was half And 1 mix-tape/half hip hop troupe.

One dude, MPG (apparently stands for "Mack, Player, Gangsta") was able to complete the unfortunately difficult task of getting the crowd moving. He also looked like Ice Cube back in his gheri curl days:

Not sure what I was expecting out of this singer, but definitely not that voice

And finally, the headliner, a J-Pop/R&B singer by the name of Jamosa.

Good times

Hip Hop is World Wide

There's a regular hip hop night hosted not too far from where I live every other month. It's great that such a small, remote area can have a decent hip hop scene. There were DJ's, b-boys and emcees there representing 3 out of 4 elements.

They played both Japanese and American Hip Hop (Biggie, Nas, etc..) and even dropped some classic b-boy joints (e.g., DJ Shadow's Organ Donor) when we started breaking.

Hip Hop is world wide.

Event flier. I obviously don't know how to photograph one

Two of the emcees of the night. They had the hypest show. Wish I knew what they said...

Cold chillin' in his b-boy stance

Usual hip hop show Suspects from left to right 2 left: hip hop head, a coffee bartista from my local shop, two youngin groupies and a b-boy

Dude was breaking in those shoes. True story

Makeshift Drum Set

I was about to leave school yesterday when I heard drumming. I knew we had a drum set, practice snares and pads at school but had never seen or heard anyone using them.

Stepping into the room, I found one of my students--a quiet 2nd year girl from an honor class--practicing on the snare. I had seen her playing the xylophone before but didn't know she also played the drums.

We took turns banging away on the snare and drum pad before I got the idea to add more to the arrangement. I first brought over a music stand to serve as a muted high-hat. She didn't know what I was expecting so I demonstrated before handing the drum sticks back to her. Bam! She used the makeshift high hat and snare without a hitch.

Well, if she can handle this, then surely she can deal with more...

And so it went. I'd grow the set using random items from around the room and then, after getting used to the sound, she'd make a beat. A cardboard box acted as a tom-tom. A small tin can worked as a cowbell. Etc..

It was a blast and reminded me of the awesome street drummers who pour their souls into their music on avenues around the world.

I stepped out for a while and came back to find her going off on the real drum set. This quiet 2nd year student can play the drums like this? MAN! If I can find some guitar players at this school, I'm totally going to start a band...