#16) Japanese Dance Festivals

Japanese Dance Festivals are crazier than bat shit.

I realize that this is only my second post and it is also about the Japanese. We could have been a bit more economical and lumped Japan all into one category but that didn’t happen so you will just have to deal.

Recently I saw two performances of butoh, a uniquely Japanese style of modern dance developed post-war to help re-establish the national identity and hegemony of a defeated Japan. Or so they say. Do some digging and you’ll realize that the first piece of butoh was about the taboo of homosexuality and involved a live chicken.

Butoh is a style of dance that, like everything else Japanese, is not quite entirely unlike dance. Music? Check. Rhythmic movement to that music? Check. Naked Japanese men painted white and beating themselves rapidly on the head while shrieking? Check. Butoh has a lot of slow stress-poses as well, focusing less on what we regular people would call dancing such as rapid footwork or even a little pop-and-lock, and more on deliberate and intricate control of the body as a whole.

Which works well for the skinny Japanese but not so much for the sweaty hairy white men that were also participating, which just goes to show you that the Japanese are special people.



And speaking of Japanese dancers, in this same festival Eiko and Koma performed one of their classic pieces from a few decades ago entitled “Rust.” We here at TTACTBS have been thrilled that SYTYCD has been showcasing excellent and innovative talent from the contemporary dance world and we thought with the introduction of things like krumping and Bollywood to the competition, this season would be ripe for butoh. And what better way introduce the world to Japanese modern movement than to have two masters like Eiko and Koma perform a seminal piece of dance. Here we imagine how this conversation might go:

SYTYCD: Eiko and Koma, we would love for you to perform on our show.
E&K: We shall perform “Rust”, a seminal work in which we dance as if we were rust on a fence.
SYTYCD: Hmmm, rust you say?
E&K: We will not so much as dance as lean against a chain-link fence and move slowly towards each other for twenty minutes.
SYTYCD: Hmmm, with intricate footwork, perhaps?
E&K: Not really, since we will be upside down on our heads the whole time.
SYTYCD: Dressed as rust?
E&K: Naked.
SYTYCD: But the music –
E&K: No.
SYTYCD: No music?
E&K: The creaking of the fence beneath our creeping, naked bodies is out music.
SYTYCD: You’re crazier than bat shit.
E&K: Us?
Mary Murphy: Hot tamale train!

#13) Super Pii Pii Brothers

Super Pii Pii Brothers is crazier than bat shit.

In Japan, there are two things that go virtually hand in hand: sexual hang-ups and video games. So it is not surprising that the Japanese would combine the two.

Walk onto any subway in Tokyo and you'll see businessmen either reading badly drawn fetish porn disguised as a "graphic novel" or glued to some virtual reality hi-tech video gaming system that is 7 years ahead of the U.S. and causes American fan boys to wet their pants at the mere thought of getting their hands on something their friends don't have because it is only available in the mythical Nippon. Whew.

Now I'm not a woman, so I don't the problems that come along with having to pee sitting down. Maybe all you women out there are secretly jealous that we boys can whip it out whenever we feel like it and just spray away. Maybe it's some sort of Freudian slip in your psycho-sexual development that causes these thoughts, if you even have them. Or maybe the Japanese are just more obsessed with bodily functions due to their hyper-repressed yet hyper-misogynistic culture that I can't even begin to understand, and have never bothered to try.

Honestly, I don't know.

What I do know, is that Strapping a remote control penis to your waist and trying to aim a continuous stream of virtual urine into fast moving toilet boils, all the while pretending that it "promotes good bathroom skills and allows women to experience for the first time the pleasure of urinating while standing" is crazier than bat shit.

#10) Japanese Game Shows

Japanese game shows are crazier than bat shit.

Mostly because they combine both the weird perversions of the Japanese with a language most white people can't understand and antics you haven't seen since Double Dare.

The Japanese are masters of the Physical Challenge, which if you are over the age of 25, you know involves whipped cream, chocolate sauce, cherries, whiffle bats and a slide. Add to that the borderline comic hyper-sexuality of the Japanese and a touch of Hello Kitty and you've got yourself some quality television.

The first time I saw a Japanese game show I was in a pool hall in Washington D.C. waiting for a table and one came on the TV behind the bar. It was a dating show where two groups of men were competing for a chance to date a Japanese girl.

In one group, fat men had to try and climb up hill, almost naked, on a giant slip-n-slide covered with oil. In the other, skinny men with mattresses strapped to their bodies had to compete in a race while being blown back by a giant fan. It's simultaneously so un-PC and so accepting of everyone's limitations that it makes you smile in the way that the Special Olympics kind of makes you laugh a little bit on the inside. So precious.

This clip is even better.

In this one, Japanese women dressed in French Maid costumes take turns getting dizzy by spinning around with their foreheads on baseball bats and then bowling. Have you ever watched a dizzy Japanese maid try and bowl? We highly recommend it.

It's such bat shit genius that it makes American game shows look almost smart in comparison. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Probably not, but at least we won't make you wear next to nothing and step on a giant scale on national television while you cry about how fat you are. Oh wait. We do that.

Bat shit.