Road of Light and Sound

Kagoshima had this event at roughly the same time last year. It's a music and art exhibit thing that runs mainly in the evening on a Saturday. I wanted to check out the schedules at the 4 music stages, so I got out of the apartment about 45 minutes early on my way in to the English school. The stages and seating were all ready at noon, but nothing else was going on. This is the cultural stage, located in front of the old Textiles Expo building near Terukuni shrine.



Over at the park next to the shrine, high school students were putting up the art stuff. Or, rather, they were taking a lunch break from it.





The second stage, primarily for traditional music, was at the back end of the same park, near the pond and big statues.



The third stage was in front of the Marchen children's museum. This was for family-oriented music, I guess.



And the fourth stage, for world music by university students, was in front of the main art museum. From here, I went to Maruya Gardens to get the newspaper, cutting through Central Park to check out the Curry Festa, and continued on to Maruya before getting to the school. My lessons ended at 5 PM.



I got back to the art museum at 5 PM, and checked out the first big art piece. Unfortunately, this was almost exactly the same thing as last year (same arrangements, maybe different artwork on the umbrellas).





I liked this one.



Tomoe, pops and jazz.





One of the main elements of the Road of Light and Sound are the lanterns lining the roads in the area. This section is one of the access sidewalks to the museum. The lights here are just flicker LEDs.





Marchen. Yamashita, folk music.





Yeah, the lanterns in the park, and the big replica of the volcano in the background are the same as for last year. Sigh.



Chikuyukai (a flute group) playing Shakuhachi (Japanese flutes).





Mineko Fukuyama. Pops.



Maenohama Choi no Choi Odori. (Maenohama is a school name. Odori is "dance." Choi no choi is the kind of dancing they were doing.)



There were two guys dressed up as oni (demons), one red, the other blue. The blue one was at the other end of the stage, and he seemed to be controlling the dancing on stage (which ended about the time I got there). The red one just would not face me, and this is the best shot I could get. When the music stopped, he'd rush the audience and try to scare them.



Same stage, one hour later (6 PM).





This was a bit odd. There's a large pole in the middle of the tower, and the men around it would pull ropes to lift the pole up and have it drop on the ground with a thud to set the rhythm of the music. The problem was, sometimes the thudding would stop, but the men would keep pulling the pole up and dropping it. My assumption is that the thudding sound was recorded on the CD used for playing the music, and the pole was just a visual prop.



MBC is a multi-corporation, doing building construction, but they also have a radio station, and a children's school across the street from the art museum. The school was listed on the event map as participating in the Road event, so I came back here, and found that they had kiri-e (cut paper art) hanging in the windows. I'm tempted to try making one of these.





I like the chicken, too.



Back in the park again. The lanterns here use real wax candles.





The volcano had a fog machine inside for generating smoke.



Kunio Band. Western music.



Trying to get a good shot in the dark with spot lights and a moving subject is a losing cause.



We had a typhoon miss us again. The winds blew out all the clouds, giving us near-perfect skies for the night.



Finally, back to the cultural stage, and then time to return home for dinner.
Tomorrow, the Curry Festival.