If one goes to Arthur Story Park in Houston Texas on a weekday afternoon they will be treated to a pleasant diversion from the everyday big city life; nice green wooded expanses with large stretches of grass; several play area for kids to swing, slide and climb; gazebo’s for social gatherings; jogging/walking paths around a large lake that provides seasonal lodging for a host of migratory water foul. One is also enveloped in the sounds of nature that usually accompany these visual pleasantries; birds chirping in the trees, quacking of ducks on the pond and the laugher of kids playing all throughout the park.
But on Wednesday evening, October 5th 2011, the urban jungle refugees gathered in Arthur Story Park were surprised by a new sight and sound. Sights and sounds that did not convey the essence of nature’s tranquility; but, instead, the excitement of experiencing the multi-cultural diversity one finds in Houston. In this case it was the sights and sound of Okinawa Eisa drum and dance.
At the last minuet, RMDTexas was given a chance to submit a video to be included as part of the opening ceremonies of the 5th Unchinanchu Festival. Since this was for the Unchinanchu Festival, Tomoe-san, the director, wanted to do something a little more special than just record the video at the dojo. So, the morning of the shoot, she secured permission to record the video in Arthur Story Park.
That evening in the park around six pm; amongst the tee shirts, tennis shoe and jogging shorts appeared a lone young lady dressed in the Chinese style black pants and shirt of Ryukyukoku Matsuri Diako. With long straight black hair pulled back into a pony tail, red sash around her waist, gold ribbon head band and big red O-Daiko slung over her shoulder, her bright white jikatabi’s maintained a steady walking pace as she headed towards the duck pond. The assemblage of the RMDTexas troupe had begun.
Within the next fifteen minutes most of the members had arrived; the sound equipment was being set up and all drums were stacked on a picnic table. Everyone shared a nervous anticipation as they started to figure just exactly how to shoot the video. You see; because of the late notice, they had only had a week to learn the routine. The members knew what to do individually, but up to this point they had only two sessions to work as an ensemble.
But the lack of preparation was not the biggest challenge facing RMDTexas that evening. One stipulation the parks officials set for being able to use the park was that there could not be any drum playing until 7:00 PM. And that evening the sun was setting at 7:13 PM. They did as much practicing as they could without using their drums.
Seven O’clock approached and they still weren’t comfortable with how things were going. After all, this video was going to be shown at the biggest event for all expatriate Okinawans in the last five years.
Unfortunately, the last rays of sunlight filtering through the trees at Arthur Story Park that evening just did not provide enough light to make a suitable video.
Fortunately though, the lights in the gazebo did!!!
RMDTexas was faced with a lot of challenges in making this video, from having only one week for preparation to just 13 minutes of light for filming. But RMDTexas loves to take on overwhelming challenges. By the end of the evening everyone was able to say; no matter how the video turns out or whether or not it gets shown at the Festival, we took on the challenge and did the very best we could.
The payoff for RMDTexas that evening was seeing the crowd of people that gathered to watch their efforts in Arthur Story Park - just everyday Houstonians who decided to take their family to the park and relax a little. In return they received the surprise of seeing the Joy of Okinawan Eisa drum and dance right in there own neighborhood.
