Soul Run, the Basics

I know I just wrote about Soul Run going to Disney, but in reality, we don’t ever hang out. I used to see them three times a week and now we only meet up for dinner every few weeks or to go out. I miss practices! I miss scrambling from class to the gym back to class again! I miss exercising and dancing with everyone! I get the world’s smallest violin, right? Actually, I won’t be upset for much longer. We just had a Soul Run Bounenkai/Christmas Party at which they announced that we will begin practicing again soon! Apparently a really nice hotel has booked us as live entertainment for some big event and we need to get back into practice, reorganize our lines, and build up those leg muscles again. We did lose a lot of good members because they were only here for the first semester, but this time we won’t be starting from scratch, at least.

But this is a “basics” blog, so let me get the cultural lecture out of the way. I’ve done this speech so many times, and if I’ve already done it on here too, I’m sorry, but I’m sure someone will be reading it for the first time. “Soul Run” is a play on words; the group does a type of dance called Souran Bushi and it sounds a lot like Soul Run, so the name stuck. For Japanese, they translated the name directly (魂走) and call themselves the Running Souls. Kind of cool, kind of creepy, but it works. Souran Bushi is a traditional Japanese (Hodaiko?) fisherman’s dance that has been sped-up and reset to more modern-sounding music. Every group who performs Souran has their own version or style. There are certain parts in the song that are made for slight improve, and of course the number of people changes a lot of flare in the dance. For all my kids in FLA, we did Souran Bushi before, but I wanted to do the real thing here in Japan. It was such an experience and it really showed me how weak my stamina could be, but I soon got the hang of it.

Now that I know the real way to dance, I really want to start a group of my own at Witt. It would have a purpose: we can perform at the East Asian Festival during my senior year, I ‘d be teaching people about Japanese culture, and I would be able to do the dance again (hehe). But if it is under my control, the dancers are going to know their stuff! No slackers allowed! If we dance Souran Bushi, we go hard and fierce! Just saying. It is all still in the planning stages, but it is going to happen. But before then, we have to do the performance in February. Once more with the Running Souls, then I’m on my own in America. Dokkoisho!

Before I finish the post, I was able to find this video on facebook! It is of our final performance during the ICU Festival. The first one is us performing Souran Bushi and the second is the Para Para performance. The boys stage left are the Para Para Club and the kids on stage right are the Shorinji Kempo members. Soul Run is in front of the stage and I'm the one in dead center. Remember, I had dislocated (the relocated) my left knee a week before th performance and had been doing taiko all that week and weekend, too. But I think I kept pace pretty well. Hope you like it!