Don Kenny describes his costume...	...and then performs a sample of Kyogen
Describing the roles that masks play	Demon mask
Man mask	Animal mask
Old woman mask	Young woman mask

After a brief break, Mark Oshima gave a session on Kabuki theater. Kabuki is an experience that is definitely beautiful yet can be uneventful if you don't look at it correctly. Luckily, Mark pointed out things in the performance to help explain things. Every movement is planned and has some type of meaning. As he puts it, "If it is going to slow, perhaps you are looking too fast!" I think I'll steal that quote and put it on my web page.Kabuki theater is not popular with Japanese people. It is looked upon as being an old art form. Here are pictures from the performance.

I've ordered a DVD of the performance and will post footage of it here eventually

	Mark explains the musical aspect of the performance
She came out normal, painted her face, added makeup, put on the outfit and hair and then began her performance
A little blurry but you get the idea of what the makeup looks like up close .	It was quite the transformation!

After the theater performances were over, we headed back to our rooms to change and freshen up. We had to be back downstairs for our JFMF Teacher Program Welcome Reception. Opening remarks were made by David Satterwhite (Executive Director of The Japan-United States Educational Commission - JUSEC).

Movie Time....with Mr. Tyler! The first movie is of a picture of me that ended up being a movie (way to go Tracey!). The second movie is of the instruments being played. Very brief....

Play movie 1 | Play movie 2

Welcome remarks were given by Goda Takashi (Deputy Director - General, Primary and Secondary Education Bureau of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and Nini Forino (Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer - Public Affairs Section of the American Embassy in Tokyo). These people like their titles, don't they? After some nice words, we had a toast and then got to eat dinner!

Deputy Director Takashi	Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer Forino
Gen Kato, Fulbright Alumnus, makes the toast	Start off with a little miso soup

After the reception, we decided to hit the town and see some of Tokyo at night. I led some JFMFers to the Ginza district since I was there last night. After walking around for a bit, we went into a Japanese bar for a drink. As the only Americans in the place, the waitress took us past a few tables and upstairs. Once we got upstairs, we asked if there were any seats available downstairs since the second floor was a little boring. She told us (or tried to tell us) that there were not enough tables. We passed some on the way up so I was a little confused. Anyways, we stayed at our table and enjoyed our biru. Here we are!

Can anyone say discrimination?	Here's the restaurant!
A Japanese couple joined us about 10 minutes later so maybe they were telling the truth!

After that experience, we left and met up with some other JFMFers and went to another Japanese establishment called Kenny's. It has been great meeting so many educators from throughout the U.S. Every time we have a meeting or get-together, we make contact with new people. Pretty cool...