Pat's Blog

Things are changing in Takamatsu and now that summer is almost here the Hula dance groups are out in force in the Sunport area near the Takamatsu Japan Rail Station. The “Aloha-fes” or Aloha Festival is a 3-day event in the second week in May each year for many amateur Aloha dance groups, and colorful it is indeed.

This year from my house, I could hear the slack-key Hawaiian guitar and slow “oi-oi-lei-lei” “huka-heiki-huka” chants wafting across the warm air from a kilometer away. Don’t ask, I have no idea what it means? But it did sound rather soft & inviting. Walking down for a look, I could quickly see there’s not much future in hula dancing as it’s a shaky business. (boom-boom)

One of the things I like about the Japanese is they don’t do things by half-measures. Once they take up a sport, interest or any activity at all, it’s 100% full-on. They dress the part, look the part and have all the right gear & hula dancing is no exception. Disappointingly, I didn’t see anyone in a grass skirt as I’d hoped … however I did think coconut-shell bras would have been a nicer, more authentic touch.

The area was packed; the colors screamed summer and the dancers looked nice even without coconuts.

A large retinue of grooming assistants, hairdressers and sales people with all the Hawaiian gear on sale were there and business looked brisk. This hula dance thing is pretty serious for these people and they don’t fool around. Many were it seemed, very professional, not that I’m any judge of hula dancing but they looked that way.

There will be a few more events like this in the summer and I’ll try to report on them before they start for you, should you be either in Takamatsu or coming here.

Takamatsu is a very friendly city and easy to get around. The City office promotes using bicycles and as an avid cyclist I approve of it. “one less car” as we cyclists say. When you come here, you’ll find rent-a-cycles available right outside the station. (well, actually it’s underground) there’s a huge and very cheap bicycle rental service with a minimum of fuss to rent and many places to park cycles throughout the city. A new map of great routes the city want to promote is about to be released. I’ll be writing about that next week for you. Until then …

 http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu

http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/


  

Well, the good news for me at least is that ‘Pat’s Blog’ is back and the funding from the Takamatsu City came through. Whew … I was a bit caught off guard, as now we have to write a couple of blogs about art rather quickly. Now fortunately, in Takamatsu with the Setouchi International Art Festival 2013, this is fairly easy to do.
http://setouchi-artfest.jp/en/




We are asked to keep our reports within the Takamatsu area and I will as much as possible. The Spring third of this wonderful festival is now over and I was fortunate to see some remarkable work on the peninsular of land that was an island until 1967, then due to a land reclamation project, the island became connected to the adjacent land. This location has some art projects that were really interesting.
(insert two photos here)
The remarkable Russian artist Tanya Preminger’s “Stratum” part of her “Earth Works” series and Yukie Ohata’s Shamijima art project undertaken by Kobe Design University focuses on the theme of “three whites”. Shells collected from the beach were ground into a powder and used to make a large picture exhibited in the classroom. The life of the sea resides in this work.



http://www.tanyapreminger.com

Preminger’s ‘Stratum’, the construction of which she was heavily involved with, was so fantastic I thought about it for weeks afterwards. Was I walking up, then down but seeming to just be going around in circles. (like much of life perhaps ..)



A quote from a recent interview with the artist;
“The creation of the future, the process of development, is the theme of my project. Development starts from the earth as a symbol of all the basic physical concepts, and yearns to the sky. The sky as a symbol of spirituality. In the project, named Stratum, I only use soil and vegetation. Since the process of creation is a natural process.”



With over 50,000 visitors from overseas at the first festival, the Setouchi International Art Festival is set to become a world-class event. So if you’re in the Takamatsu area you must see some of the art, which will run through the summer and autumn. Pease check the link in English that I’ve posted at the top.




  http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu

http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/

I’ll be back pretty soon with a blog on a recent event in Takamatsu. So please keep all those cards, letters and comments coming in. Until then ..