09/09/2026
Sensei and Melissa attended the annual Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden over the weekend, and as soon as the gates opened we made a beeline for the Okinawan eisa performance. Eisa is a traditional folk dance with music, drums, high energy, and sometimes there's even a bit of kata!
The St Louis Okinawa Eisa Yui group were the featured performers, and they brought in special guests from Okinawa, Sousaku Taiko Shudan SHIN. They all did a fantastic job, and their combined performance was the highlight of the festival for us both.
I first learned about eisa through Andy Clark, a black belt down at the Kosho School of Karate. He and his wife are part of Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko Ohio, and they perform for us at the karate and jodo seminars in Cincinnati. Andy tells me his group and the St Louis group have performed together and support one another, so hopefully we'll get to see that sometime in the future.
Eisa Yui also had a pair of Shisa costumes, which are the lion-like creatures that came out on stage for one routine. Shisa are said to provide protection and bring good fortune, and Shisa statues can often be seen on rooftops or near doorways in Okinawa. They were fun to watch, and they wandered into the crowd and "bit" several members of the crowd, including Melissa and I. Andy explained that the Shisa bites are actually a way of bestowing blessings on people. Another bonus of sitting up front!
I have some video from the performance, and I'll try to post some of that in the near future. Meanwhile, stay tuned this week, as I have more photos to share! We were there for 12 hours, and there were still things we missed. Guess we'll have to go back next year. đŸ˜‰
