The Sakura Dance : Miyako Odori

The city in Kyoto, Gion is famous for Geisya and the beautiful cherry bloosoms all over shirines and temples in April. And the Sakura Dance called Miyako Odori by Geisya makes the sakura blooming month even more special. Miyako Odori is an annual dance performed by Geiko and Maiko (junior Geisya) based on the theme of sakura. The period of performance is only from begining of April to the last day of April, so if you miss this chance, that means you need to wait another year to see the performance. So, on the almost last day of April, which is 29th, my friends I watched the dance and it was just unforgettable.

This is the theater called Gion Kobu Kaburen-jo located near Yasaka shrine in Kyoto.

The first performance of this dance was held in 1872 as part of the Exhibition for the Promotion of Domestic Industray, as a measure to promote prosperity in Kyoto after the city's decline as a result of the capital having been moved to Tokyo in 1869 (information from here). And now it has became an annual event and this year is their 138th presentation of the dance.

I thought the theater is going to small, having just one floor, but the theater was actually way bigger than I expected, having upto 3rd floor. There was 3 types of ticket, 4500 yen, 4000 yen and 2000 yen. With the 4500 yen one, we could have reserved seat and Geiko tea ceremony, but since we were students we just chose 2000 yen one with free seating on Tatami mats without chairs on the 3rd floor. Our seats were very interesting and not that bad. I have never seen a seat like this before in a theater.

This is the stage I saw from 3rd floor

This the free seating area on Tatami mats on 3rd floor. It was so interesting!

The performance was composed of 8 scenes in total, depicting scenes of 4 season starting from spring, summer, fall, winter and then spring again in one hour performance. Because of my low Japanese ability, I could not understand the whole flow of the story, but I can surely tell that every scene was so beautiful and delicate. For the spring scene, the wall and ceiling was fully covered by sakura. And the geisya were all dressed with sakura design kimono, holding sakura branches.

Spring Scene

Night scene in Summer

Fall scene with maple background

Winter scene: the door of the room was opened and could see the winter scenery

Every stage was so delicate and beautiful. It was said that the Kimono for the performance change every year and all of thems are order-made, which takes 6 months to produce the full Kimono and Obi sash.