Kyo Odori 2008

Amazing, that is the word I think best describes this year's Kyo Odori.

I arrived 30 minutes before the show started so I could attend the tea serving event before the show, they served a white manju cake with Anko filling accompanied with matcha tea, which was delicious, not bitter at all, and we got to keep the little plates they served the manju on as a present, the plates have Kyo odori written on the back

The show was split in to 7 dances, the theme for the first dance was (roughly translated) spring time in Kyoto is filled with beautiful flowers but none is as beautiful as the dancing of Maiko and Geiko (Geisha).

The second dance was love under the "hana tsubaki tree".

The third dance represented a chapter from Genji Monogatari , Ukifune in the Uji river:

The fourth dance was by far the most impressive, Taki-Yasha hime (princes Taki-Yasha) tries to trick Oyano-mitsukuni using magic:

Dance #5 was a relaxed style dance "Fukuchi-yama-ondo" in a comical rhythm (I'm trying to translate from the brochure sorry for being literal)

On the far left is Komomo, she danced in 3 of the 7 dances she is so famous right now, you can actually buy her book about about her life as a Geisha in the Kaburenjo Theater.

Dance #6 was themed after the Kiku flowers that grow on a temple and how they make Maiko happy:

On this picture you can see Kimiharu in the Lavender Kimono, she was on one of the 2 Kyo odory posters this year.

The final dance with all the maiko and Geiko (Geisha) on stage, absolutely jaw dropping:

I cant upload all the photos I took here so Im uploading them to my Flickr.com account if you want to see them go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/54973022@N00/

Jya ne!