Thursday, April 07, 2016

Dancing with evening cherry blossoms

夜桜に舞う… 
和歌山の桜の名所、紀三井寺にてアラビア音楽の生演奏によるベリーダンスショーを観てまいりました。私のピラティスの先輩でもあるベリーダンサーのJannah(ジャンナ)がゲスト出演するということもあり、楽しみでした。
和歌山は私の実家のお隣なので、両親を誘ってお出かけ。




高台にある寺の本堂まで行くと、500本ほどあるといわれている桜を見下ろし、一面桜色の雲の上にいるような心地。
遠くに海が見えて、青くなる夕刻の空気と混じって私の好きな色へと変わっていきました。
空は刻々と群青、そして漆黒へ。
ライトアップされた夜桜は降り出したやわらかな雨に濡れて金色に輝いていました。



ショーの開催前に、副住職さんが歌と踊りの奉納を仏様にごあいさつ。
散華(さんげ)をはらはらと撒かれて、ちょうど私たちのところに舞い落ちてきたものを父が拾い集めてくれました。桜の森の上に多宝塔が見えている絵が描かれたものと、天女様の舞っている絵の2種類でした。
その後、アラブのヴォーカリストさんがアラビア語で仏様にご挨拶。
日本人はなんて、懐が深いんだろう。
そもそも仏を遡ればインドの神様たち。
美しいものや尊いものを愛でる気持ちに、国境や宗教は関係ない。



Jannhaはとっても素敵で、もちろんダンサーさんたちのパフォーマンスは本当に楽しげで美しかったです。アラビアの楽器についても詳しく解説をして下さったのも嬉しかったです。
やさしい気持ちになれた宵でした。


Night cherry blossoms and dance performances.
I went to a belly dance show with an Arabic band at Kimi-temple, where famous for cherry blossoms in Wakayama. One of my Pilates senior and a belly dancer Jannah was going to perform, so I was quite looking forward to it.
Wakayama is very close to my hometown, so I asked my parents out to come with me.



The main hall of the Kimi-temple is situated on top of the hill where we can look down cherry trees which they say there's about 500. It's just like we are above pale pink clouds.
Far beyond the cherry blossoms, we could see the ocean. From dusk, everything turned into blue and it's my favorite color.
The sky changed its color from indigo to jet black.
Cherry blossoms were illuminated and were softly wet with sweet rain, so they looked like golden flowers.



Before the show was begun, a vice priest sang a prayer, basically letting their Buddha know we were going to dedicate songs and dances.
He scattered a shower of Sange (An arty card shaped like a petal of a lotus and is used as a substitute of real lotus petals at Buddhist services. ) My father picked up few for my mother and I. I've got the one with a two story pagoda (Tahou-tou) looking tall above the sea of cherry trees, and the one with a heavenly maiden is dancing in the sky.
After the prayer, an Arabian vocalist also sang in Arabic to the Buddha.
I just love this broad-minded culture we have.
All the Buddhist gods in Japan were originally came from India anyways.
No boundary or religion matters when we appreciate beautiful things and precious things.




Jannah was so beautiful. So were other dancers. Each of them looked so fun and beautiful. We could learn about Arabian music instruments as well and that was great.
The evening made me feel tender.

Jannah and me.
As she is so tiny, she jumped on me for the photo.



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