Shimotonbetsu Chuugakkou Festival

	The first few pictures are from the dress rehersal on Friday. This shows the first of two taiko groups. The students are (from the left) Sho, Yui, Toyohiro, Shinnosuke, and Chihori. The other folks are various teachers (whose names I don't know) setting things up.
	Here's a few students (Yui and Sena in the back, Emi and Michihiro in the front) introducing the really long play. Yui's introduction was in English, which made me happy. Not that saying memorized phrases is hard for any of them, but still... This is a messed up play, but I'll get to that more later.
	This one's pretty damn dark, and I honestly can't remember this scene in the play.
	Here's a little kid talking to two aliens for some reason. He thinks they're foreigners. I don't know why, but they knock him unconcious later after saying "stupid" a lot.
	Here's Erika announcing some scene and Manabu (I think) playing the older brother, who eventually gets shot by a boistrous friend of those aliens.
	And, enter stage left, Peter Pan. Yes, his name really is Peter Pan. He was created by God for some reason which I never quite grasped. He's played by Fumiya if that helps.
	And here's the final curtain call, complete with spaceship prop. Now you get to see all the characters involved. You may see why this play confused me so much.
	And finally we get to the actual festival. I got prime seating as the principle speaks English and asked me to sit next to him. Pretty sweet. Anyway, this is that first taiko performance again. These kids are really good. The drums you see are very expensive, and there's no way the school could afford them. I gather they were donations to the school since Hamachuu has a brass band and Shimochuu had nothing similar until they got these.
	This is the second taiko performance, this one even more impressive. The rythem and teamwork they had to have to pull this one off was impressive to say the least. That's not even mentioning endurance... this was a long piece and they beat those drums pretty hard. It took a lot of practice.
	From left to right: Marie, Tomoya, Takanori, and Emi.
	Here's the elementary school (yes, all 5 of them) performing the Soran dance. I wish I had a shot of the junior high students doing their updated techno-ish version... that was cool. Anyway, the two students in the front will be my pupils next year as they're 6th graders. This will leave the elementary school with only 3 students next year. How the hell do they fund that? (The other students are currently 4th, 2nd, and 1st graders.)
	Here's another shot of the Soran dance.
	And the long play again, with the kimono girls (and one guy) dancing around the guy with the grass skirt who recently summoned a treasure box with the help of god whom they just finished beating with a paper fan. I don't know what was inside, but it caused the strobe light to start and this frantic dance to classic rock.
	Here's the older brother, father, and Peter Pan. God is just offstage.
	This is just after god and Peter Pan break up a tug of war over Chika who I think was kidnapped by the aliens. She eventually goes with them anyway.
	And the curtain call again. When Sho said their names, they performed one of their defining lines from the play.
	Older brother and boyfriend do their take on the introduction speech.
	This is the closing ceremony, none of which I could understand, but the students were having fun. They really enjoyed the whole production.
	See those taiko drums? They were placed all around the audience. Shortly after this photo, they played a bit on those... real rib-cage-rattling entertainment.
	And they sung a bit, passing around the mike like a hot potato, occasionally shoving it in a friend's face for an amusing burst over the speakers.
	Here's a shot from that drum performance I mentioned.
	Here's a shot of the sannenseis (the one all in white was god in the play) posing... or rather finishing posing.
	I find the best pictures are taken when the subjects aren't expecting it, such as when they're trying to get everyone together to pose for a picture. This is a good thing as I completely missed their actual pose and instead got these pictures which caused Erika to be very irritated with me.
	Here's another one of said photos.
	And the last picture of the festival, before the rock-paper-scissors conga line. Don't ask.