Festival Day at Iwaki High School

Thursdays are the day that I go to my other high school, Midori Nomordi, but they have exams today so I spent the day at my main school. Because I didn’t have any classes to teach, I left my glasses at home. I figured that I would be sitting in front of the computer screen all day doing lesson planning and hopefully studying a ton of Japanese (my studies have been pretty weak lately). It turned out to be festival day today as I learned when in the main entrance to the school, the flower arrangement club had put on a display next the photography club’s exhibition, which was next to the drawing and painting show. I soon found out that several student clubs would be putting on presentations in the gym and that we would eventually go to the city theatre to watch a play. There has been a lot to look at today and my eyes are damn sore from squinting all day.

A colleague of mine recently stated his opinion that Japan is basically a country that is devoid of any real art. His argument was that in such a repressive country as Japan, it is impossible for artists to thrive. I didn’t know what to say at the time, but after seeing the work of these young teens today, I must disagree strongly. To support his argument, my colleague mentioned the names of famous Japanese artists who had to work abroad because Japan was too much of a repressive environment for them. Maybe the art he was referring to is of a higher, more mature, more impactual art. It wouldn’t be fair me to assume his argument because it was a bit of a brief discussion, but I am inclined to believe that if Japan is in fact a repressive society (however we may want to define this), that this is in fact the ideal climate for fostering some amazing art – or at least incredible artistic ability.

I thought today was going to be fairly boring, so I considered bringing my camera to school today. I thought it might be weird for other teachers and staff to see me walking around the school taking photos while they were all hard at work, so I left it at home. Hence, I have no visual proof of these visual wonders that I am devoting this post to.

I think I’ve mentioned, or at least implied a bit about my interest in photography before. And I quite enjoyed seeing the photography club’s presentation of work. There were definitely some great photos – portraits of siblings, interesting architecture, creative use of light and shadow, some good macro. When I saw the drawing and painting exhibit, it struck how easy it is to find an interesting image, or to even consider an image interesting enough to take a photo of, only to find out later that this image was in fact amazing. Photographers really just push buttons and turn knobs. There is a significant amount of knowledge that is very useful in creating great images – and a lot of finesse in handling the camera as well, but really, when it comes down to it, we just push the button.

Compare this to the painter or the sketch artist or the sculptor, who spends hours, days, weeks, working on their masterpiece. Not only do they consider composition just as much as a photographer – maybe even more, but they go through the arduous task of creating this image one stroke at a time. I can’t imagine the amount of time that some of these artists put into their images. The textures and perspectives put into these still-life images were incredible. One of my favorites was sort of a butterfly wall-paper painting with a person that occupied about a quarter of the image. The painting was turned upside-down and the words “Where are you” were placed throughout the butterflies. The effect put the person in an odd area of the painting and was actually difficult to see from this perspective. I thought it was pretty ingenious the way the composition played with the interpretation of the image. There was also a piece that was a collage of almost Neil Gaimen-type horror sketches of frogs with human legs, and a cow with a mermaid’s tail, and two legs that prodrude from a lobster, and bunny in a jester’s uniform chewing on a thorny rose stem. To sum up, I saw a lot of talent and creativity in many of these images.

Apparently, Iwaki High School also has the best high school brass band in Japan – and they have won all of the competitions to prove it. Although, one teacher informed me more modestly that they haven’t won them all… yet – and that technically, they should be considered to be only within the top 5 so far. In any event, I got to see a full 50 minute performance by a pretty incredible brass band.

The high school band program is a little bit different in Japan than it is in Canada. In Canada, students sign up for band as part of their course selection and it counts as credit towards graduation. In Japan, students sign up for band as a club activity, so it’s not for credit and they only practice after school. In a school of about 1100 students, I think there were almost 90 members in this band.

The selection of instruments alone was impressive. There were a couple of instruments that I didn’t even recognize. The conductor described one as a “sarusophone,” I think is what he said – it was a tall slender brass instrument that only got used for a few songs. They also had a couple of English horns, two stand-up basses that added good articulation to the low end, and I also saw my first contra-bass clarinet. This instrument stands at least 5 feet tall and was played by a girl that barely weighs 90 lbs. It comes in a case that is about the size of two full-sized beer coolers and takes two people to assemble.

One of the big highlights of the night was when the lead alto saxophone player somehow snuck out of the gymnasium, and there was a big instrument change that involved a drum kit and electric bass. It was a real smooth kind of jazzy song that led up to the sax player entering with a killer solo from the back of the gym. Heads turned, I had to stand from where I was sitting, and they guy, cool as river water, strolled down the centre isle to the front of the band where the rest of the section – soprano, alto, tenor, and baritones, joined him and they featured several solos, duets, and sectional ‘solis’ throughout the song. There was also a song that featured the bassoon player, who was incredible – the band also deserves credit as the entire group managed to play under the unmic’d bassoon. The clarinet section also had a feature song – no contra bass, but they did have what looked like a soprano clarinet maybe? They ended with a couple of crazy numbers where the entire band stood up and went through some pretty intricate dance choreography and still managed to stay tight. The last one featured a group of all males who put together a dance performance in front of the band without any instruments, which was fantastically gay in all meanings of the word.

There are many great things about Japan, but I imagine that much of this is due to the novelty of everything for me. There is no doubt however, that these kids were good. It was also refreshing to be able to hear something in a language that I understand.

I was going to put some random photos up with this post, but I think that they wouldn’t do any justice.