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RMDTexas, Back to Traditional Eisa - Japan Festival 2011
During the O-Bon festival, Eisa drum and dance groups’ march throughout the streets of the towns and villages in Okinawa; stopping and performing at individual homes to welcome the ancestors that have come back to visit. For the first time in Houston, the people at the 2011 Japan Festival experienced the trill of hearing the rhythmic pounding of Eisa drums off in the distant... getting closer. At the festival that day, not being able to see through the crowds but hearing the drums getting closer and closer, your pulse would quicken and as the sound of the drums grew louder and louder your body start to tingle. As the drum reached a fever pitch in you ears you excitedly ask, “What is that, what’s going on?” Then in an instant, the crowd parts, and there you see an Eisa procession, coming right at you. Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko is a high powered performance group basically choreographed for stage performances. But the tradition of Eisa processions at festivals runs deep in the hearts of all Okinawans, no matter where they might end up in this world. The members of RMDTexas had wanted to get back to this traditional Eisa for years. They found the 2011 Japan Festival a perfect place to start.
When it came time for their performance at the Japan Festival, RMDTexas gathered on the other end of Hermann part from the stage. As the audience at the stage end of the park started to settle down and time for the performance came, the music started but the stage remained empty. After a few seconds of watching an empty stage with music playing, the audience started looking around with puzzled looks on their faces.
Then one of the ladies in the back heard the O-Daiko drums pounded in the distance. She stood, turned around and said there they are. As others stood and turned they saw RMDT marching beside the long reflection pond, coming towards them from the other side of the park. In double file, with their black, red and yellow RMD uniforms in the sunlight, high stepping white jikatabi shoes and the brightly kimonoed dancing ladies following, they were a sight to behold.
During the procession, and in sync with the music playing on stage, they came to a stop and performed a number for the people who had gathered around. Then they started marching again. Big O-Daiko drums pounding out an hypnotic cadence, white jikatabi’s flashing in the sunlight and serious demeanor of the individual members gave RMDTexas a marching presence that no one was going to get in the way of.
In keeping with the tradition in Okinawa of stopping to perform at homes, RMDT make to two more stops to perform for their growing entourage before marching their way up to the main stage. The crowd, being only a few feet away as the procession passed, was able to feel the full power and majesty of the big booming O-Daiko.
Having the pretty kimono dancing ladies at the end was an absolutely perfect way to finish off the procession. People loved it. Several native Okinawans came up afterward to say, "We felt like we were in Okinawa. We could feel real Okinawa right here in Texas."
Once on stage, RMDTexas continued to thrill their audience with the energetic style of Eisa Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko is known for. Kudaka, Tenyo, Mirukumunari, Kamigami no uta, Shichigatsu Eisa Machikantyi, Sanshin no hana, Nenju Kuduchi, Chunjun nangari, Kazeno yuibito were all performed during the two day span of the Festival.
In this year’s festival, RMDTexas rose to new levels of Eisa performance. In combining the traditional Eisa procession with Eisa dancing ladies and live sanshin playing, Houston’s Japan Festival was treated to a sample of why the Ryukyu’s were known as the Islands of Song and Dance. To find out about the activities for OCATexas and RMDTexas during Japan Festival 2011 please see; OCATexas - Japan Festival 2011
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