The afternoon art tour was attended by great numbers of people. The Kamiyama Sudachi Ondo, a participatory piece by Yamanaka Camera held that night at the Shimobun Elementary School sports field was also widely attended.

In the middle of the field, we stacked up some containers for an impromptu platform. Chairman Sugimoto stood on there for his opening address and also introduced this year’s KAIR participating artists.

This Kamiyama Sudachi Ondo was completely created by artist in residence Yamanaka Camera. The sudachi citrus fruit is practicallly synonymous with Kamiyama: we have the highest sudachi production of the whole country. The lyrics were written with sudachi, as well as the nature and customs of Kamiyama as the theme, and set to music. The choreography for the dance was also conceived by Mr. Yamanaka.

It was a very cold night, but lots of people came to the sports ground for the event. A lot of people who were at the afternoon art tour also turned up for the nighttime entertainment.

First of all we put on the music and practiced dancing. It is a very simple dance so it was easy for everyone to learn.

Svetlana and Cameron learned the dance quickly. We set up some Tanabata decorations at one end of the field. “It’s like O-bon and New Years came at once” is a common way to express a happy occasion in Japanese, but this was more like “Tanabata and Christmas came at once.”

There were a lot of crates stacked up in the field. We borrowed them from JA (the agricultural co-op) as well as from various farmers. We started setting up several days in advance and the ever-giving people of Shimobun turned out in droves to help out.

On Sunday, the first of November, it was raining hard but everyone worked hard at setting up. The Shimobun people have a big Tanabata festival every July so they are used to setting up the decorations. They wired up the crates and put lightbulbs inside too. However there were very strong winds on the second and the crates all fell over, breaking the bulbs and cutting the wires. I hear it was quite a mess.

On the big night, the moon was shining and it was quite cold, but it was an unsurpassed atmosphere for dancing.

Green Valley’s director Mr. Ominami is a very good dancer.

It took the help of a lot of people to make this night happen. KAIR staff said that in KAIR’s eleven-year history there never was a performance event that brought the community together in such a way.

This is true community art, isn’t it? We were lucky to have such a great experience. I think we might start performing this Sudachi Ondo at local sports day festivals and cultural festivals.

Lastly we all had some hot ameyu (hot ginger drink). This is the best stuff for cold, tired bodies. Hiromi Matsuura, you really know how to think of others.

After we’d tired ourselves out dancing, we had our usual after-party at Kofuku-ya. Including staff we figured there’d be ten-odd people there, but a whole bunch of people came. People who were in Kamiyama for the first time introduced themselves to the group. Some students from Oberlin University came all the way from Tokyo. There were also some new faces from Hyogo prefecture.

According to Kofuku-ya’s master, this was the most people they’d fit into the tatami room at the restaurant since it opened…
We made lots of new friends that night.

Everyone did a sudachi pose instead of a peace-sign pose. I hope the visitors who came from far away will come back to Kamiyama again. We KAIR staff will be here to welcome you.

ps. Video footage will be showing at the Sake Warehouse in Uetsuno until the 8th as part of the KAIR 2009 final exhibition.