Today was a big friday for me, not only is it the end of another "work" week, but it is the all school festival at Koho. Part of last week, and all of this week, the kids have been practicing little speeches, getting together a talent show, decorating rooms, making pottery, painting stuff etc. etc. All for today. Now, I wasn't expecting much in the way of a blog entry for this festival, but I was wrong. It was, truly, a showcase in unintentional comedy.

Which is good, because I was in need of a laugh. Until today the week had been relatively dry, with the notable exception of last night, when I went out drinking with my insurance agent's brother, his friend Keiko, and two Jets. I was complimenting Keiko's nose piercing in a rather long-winded fashion until one of the Jets pulled me aside and whispered that it was not actually a nose piercing, but in fact a mole. whoops.

Anyway, about the festival. Before I go on, you have to understand that these Koho kids don't stir for anything. Last week, for instance, I jumped in to class wearing a vampire costume and I got perhaps one additional kid to look up and pay attention out of 5. A vampire costume. With teeth. So you can imagine what a rip-roaring audience they were for the festival. A few of them were into it, maybe 10 in the whole school, the rest of them sat there dead.

We started with a play in which several of the super shy kids starred. None of them wanted to approach the mike to read their lines, and several of them held their scripts above their faces to block themselves from the crowd. I turned to my supervisor and mouthed what are they saying? He mouthed back I have no idea.

After that came a musical set where my supervisor played the electric bass, and both he and the band were very good, but aside from a spattering of people trying to clap in time there was no response from the crowd. So you can imagine how I cringed at the end of the set when the guitarist threw his axe on the ground Metallica style. The crowd? Dead. He smashed his guitar and all he got was the same polite golf clap from the kids and majority over-50-years-old guest audience. Oh well, it was a nice try.

After that we had a happy-hands hearfelt sign language song and dance, which was humorous because one of the teachers was up there in a suit and tie and bright blue gloves singing about a candle in the wind or whatever the hell they were singing about. After that came the keyboards, they were pretty good, except for this one kid accidentally hit the demo button during the performance of a slow, sonorous number; All of the sudden a hip drum beat chimes up, and he freezes like a deer in the headlights. One of the other keyboardists has to stop her playing, get up and move over to this poor kid, and with a push of one button she stops the beat. Everybody was laughing at that, even me, although I admit I did feel sorry for him. I patted him on the back after the number, he didn't look worse for the wear.

Following that was a school quiz in which anyone and everyone who wished could guess the correct of two answers to several questions, the winners move on. About a third of the school threw their hats in to the ring, and were slowly knocked out in each consecutive round until only two remained. Both of them, unfortunately, lost on the question "what number question is this question?" I thought that ironic.

Then, however, my number came on. The coup de grace. You see, the kids had recruited me to be a part of this very fast, cheerleader style dance called Pecori Night. In fact, in the music video for this song (which the dance is modeled on) the dancers are all cheerleaders and the lead cheerleader is a man dressed as a woman. It has everything a super fast, femenine, slightly sexual cheerleader dance might have, including jazz-hands, spins, hip thrusts, hat throwing, ride-the-pony type moves, and me. Naturally, I gave it my all, which is quite a lot. I got up there with seven other Japanese kids half my size and shook my groove thang. At the end we all go crazy and cheer: I jumped about and almost tripped a kid right off the stage, thankfully I managed to grab him by the collar and pull him back on. When the kids saw me going crazy, they all went crazy, and the final seconds were a shmorgazboard of screaming and Spartan Cheerleader jumps. The performers all had a great time.

Yes, we were a hit (i.e. we, too, got a polite golf clap).