November 6, 2012

All Souls Procession: first round of photos

Howdy!!
Welcome to my All Soul's Procession mini photo album! I'm still listening to two different election results news sources (One radio, one TV) and posting this at the same time! Multi-tasking is the norm since I've been so incredibly busy lately.
I took all of these photos with my smart phone except for the one near the bottom...husband took that with the camera before I went out. I will get some more professional photos soon, but I though this would give you a nice little amuse-bouche for now. All of my photos are copyrighted by me, so please contact me if you would like to borrow them!
This year's colors were iridescent and opalescent white and black- not that easy to interpret into kimono! I didn't even know black was also a costume color until a couple of days before the event, so my costume is a bit last-minute but I got a lot of wonderful comments and a ton of photos taken of me this time.  A rainbow or spectrum of color plus black or white was supposed to be OK as well, so I went for colorful and even added swipe of rainbow make-up to my face.  I wore my crazy dance kimono for the first time (Mostly blue on the front and green and cream striped on the back) with a black and white obi, orange obijime, green glass obidome, black and white polka-dot haneri, orange headband with white and purple faux flowers, and finally on the feet, white jika tabi that I wear for taiko. They are waaaayyy more comfortable than zori when dancing and processing for a couple of miles and then standing around for an couple of hours.
Waiting before the procession: you can see Odaiko Sonora's big odaiko (taiko drum)on the cart to the right. We dance behind the urn and a taiko player keeps a beat on the drum throughout the entire procession.

Some of my taiko/dance peeps are in the front of the photo. Most wear white happi  or a stylized yukata with a simple colored obi. You can see the tenugui we use as a dance prop around our necks. 

Close-up of the gorgeous new laser-cut steel urn. You can see some of the mementos inside. These will be burned during the finale. 

The urn attendants. These costumed folks stay with the urn throughout the procession by helping people with adding their prayers and offerings to the urn. 

The lights inside the urn change from green...

...to gold!

Far away from the finale stage: the urn on the tower. You can see silvery dancers with very large headdresses on the left side. 

The urn on fire, releasing the prayers, hopes, and mementos of thousands people. 
My costume right before I left for the procession. I'm wearing two photos for remembrance this year: My friend Rosa Nogues, who left us April and my cat K-Pax, who left us in September of this year. I put a special packet for K-Pax in the urn filled with rosemary, catnip, and lavender and a bit of his fur. 


This photo of me shown below was posted by the local news station on their website. 
The entire photo gallery is here! You can really get a sense of the type of costumes and make-up most people tend to go for- classic Dia de los Muertos. 
When more photos surface, I will post them!
Cheers,
~Reb