The following day included a dance lesson with a group of mostly elderly women who do a form of harigoma, previously only done by men. It is a folk dance kadozuke where the women sing and offer blessings while shaking a carved, decorated horse head on a wooden baton. The women eagerly grabbed us as we entered the gym where the lesson took place, dressing us in the many layers of colorful, patterned folk clothing and the masks that are worn for this performance, before taking us through the dance movements. They were delighted at our efforts and somehow thought I was especially good at this dance and encouraged me to come back and join them in April in their festival performance. I hoped to do so and to learn to carve the wooden horse prop, as they promised. Unfortunately the April event was cancelled as Covid surged across Sado. Aida offered small celebrations for locals in its stead.Following the harigoma dance lesson, we were asked to sit in front of a curtain decorated with vibrant lion figures hung across the hall and were treated to an exclusive performance of noroma ningyō [fig. 5]. This unique folk form survives only on Sado and is famous for its short comic scenes and stock characters, especially the country bumpkin Kinosuke, who finds a reason to pee on the audience toward the end of every show. Female spectators are meant to rush up and get peed on as good luck for becoming pregnant. After the performance, the puppeteers showed us the unique manipulation method of their old-style puppets, whose long arm pieces are independent of their bodies, and let us try out the technique. They also demonstrated the tube system that runs through Kinosuke for him to urinate. Given the camera crew’s time limitations, Aida rushed us to yet another puppetry event, a performance of the local bun’ya ningyō tradition at Tokiwa-za . The members of this troupe and the shamisen player were all women. They have a gorgeous collection of puppets, which we were able to see up close and try out after the show as they instructed us on performance techniques.Further adventures on Sado included a trip to the Torigoe Library for the performing arts, surprisingly located in Saruhachi, a remote area in the Kosado mountains that seems nearly inaccessible, especially driving up in the pouring rain as we did that day. There we met with - 71 -
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