I have no idea what this is, but it appears to be some form of Morris Dancing, a few less bells than is traditional in the UK, and perhaps a bit more handclapping, but basically the same kind of thing.
This is another thing beyond my current understanding – there is a U shaped ‘corridor’ marked on the ground around which people parade two at a time, one from each end, it seems to be some kind of a play because a number of other people are watching (or not, if this picture is anything to go by). Surely I’m missing something here, but what?
Still, its nice that there is the kind of spirit that makes it OK for these things to happen in the park, there are loads of these little groups all around doing various different things (the ‘play’ seems to be quite common though), it’d be something nice to import back to the UK, except our weather is too grim to get enough practice.
These are the famous dancing Elvises (or is that Elvine? Anyone want to take a more educated guess at pluralising Elvis?). These guys seem to be there every week, with their little PA system cranked well beyond its safe limits. They have some kind of an act, mainly with a rockabilly theme, but dropping into occasional silliness like leapfrogging round in circles. Not sure how genuine the quiffs are but the winklepickers are real and worn down from all that twisting – some are only held together by gaffer tape. Theres also a female ‘Elvis’ overlooking the procedings, but she’s safely out of shot here… Its a nice, if slightly bizarre, atmosphere (but then I say that about most of Tokyo).
This bridge, just by my local tube station, is the cool place to hang around and get photographed by the tourists on a Sunday afternoon. The people tend to split into little groups like this who all huddle together (except when they’re posing for photos). There are sometimes bands on here, but last time I was here there were some policemen throwing their weight around and stopping the fun. Shame.
I’ve not figured out a translation for “Nice boots…?” yet.
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