12TCCDF - Official Opening Ceremony at Omori Bell Port

Although workshops started yesterday, today is the main day of the event...the Official Opening Ceremony.  Event venue is at the lovely, airy and spacious atrium of Omori Bell Port...a business and office complex just a stone's throw from our hotel.

We arrived at the venue at half past 9am.  The atrium was already filled with people helping to set up the area, stage, decorations and sound system.  Hiro had sectioned off the atrium with rope cordons on both sides of the dance floor and with partitions on the opposite side of the stage.  The expansive feel of the place, with its high ceilings and large atrium is really impressive.

View of dance area taken from the 1st floor, at the elevator landing.

DJ console on the left....lights, speakers and decorations waiting
to be lifted off the ground

Love this balloon.  So cute!

Hello Big Bird, my old friend from Tokyo.  We meet again after
four years. :)

Many dancers started arriving and soon the tables were filled.  We had a table specially set aside for us behind the DJ console.  


Hiro kick started the event by calling all the instructors on stage.  He introduced the VIP instructor for this event, Niels of course, and then proceeded to introduce each one of us with a brief background on the instructor like he did yesterday.  


Today's dance teaches would cater mostly to Beginners, Improvers and Easy Intermediate dancers.

Formal introduction of instructors to participants by Hiro marking the official opening of the day's event.
From L to R: Niels Poulsen, Yuri Tomita (translator), Mei Ling, Yukiko Ohashi, Yoko Kizaki,
Michiko Tomiya and Chizuko Takayasu.  Hiro's holding the mic (extreme right)

Niels teaching

Filled floor...

One for the album :)

And another... my good buddies from Tokyo, Japan

Thank you DJ Miura for a glitchless flow of music

Everything at his finger tips..

Michiko Tomiya from Osaka

Chizuko Takayasu

With the 1st half of the workshop over, we headed to the Italian restaurant within the complex for lunch.

Crab meat spaghetti

Three more dances were taught after lunch, after which we were treated to a country western number by Miharu and Hiroko.

Hiro had organised a mini choreography competition to encourage local dancers to begin choreographing.  The competition is still in its infancy and had only two entries, but Hiro is confident it will gain momentum soon.


Voting was by the workshop participants.  Each was given a slip of paper printed with Team A on the left and Team B on the right.  After both teams had showcased their choreography, we dropped the name of the team we preferred, into a box.  Team A emerged the winner with their interesting country western choreography.


The winning team was later called to teach the dance to us.

Yuki and ladies showcasing her choreography for the competition
(Team B)

Miharu, Hiroko and the 'cowboy' showcasing their number for
the competition.  (Team A)

In between dance teaches and open dancing, I got to play catch-up with friends I met back in 2008. Chit-chatted with new ones and basically had a good time :)  Thank you Hiro for inviting me.  I'm thoroughly enjoying myself!

Hsiao Ling, Yuki & I

Great pix courtesy of Hiroshi Yaoko, the official photographer

Towards the later part of the evening, Niels, accompanied by the event instructors and Hsiao Ling, performed 2 of his dances for the crowd.... EZ Midnight and Only Girl.

EZ Midnight

and Only Girl.  

The workshop ended at 9-ish with Niels teaching What Are Words.  A beautiful NC2S! Easily my favourite for the entire workshop.  Niels choreographed it to Chris Medina's song 'What Are Words' which has a story behind it.  To find out more, click here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Medina

In total, we learnt 8 dances and we danced them many times over during open dancing.  So much so that the track for The Blarney Roses (choreographed by Maggie Gallagher) kept ringing in my head the whole night.  I think I wasn't the only one, because I heard Niels humming it too well after the event was over... lol!

Happy faces once again! :)

For dinner (at about 10pm) we walked all the way from Omori Bell Port to Omori station...to the shops behind/or beside it...for a spicy noodle meal.  Niels loves to eat spicy food, and he can handle it too!  So this was right up his alley.


Again, the food outlet was a really small one and it was a tight squeeze for all who came. We looked at the menu and placed our orders.  The menu was coded with flaming balls of fire icons to denote the level of spicyness.  One flaming ball meant Mild, right up to 5 balls of fire!  Niels wasn't sure just how spicy 5 balls of fire was so he played it safe and ordered a bowl of noodles rated with just 3.  I ordered the mildest one.....but soon added on spoonsful of chilli to get the 'oomph'.  So did Niels.  Hsiao Ling helped him pile on the chilli paste, even adding the chilli oil to spice things up.  Look at how red his soup is.  Looks like curry laksa :)


But no matter how much chilli paste we added, it wasn't all that spicy... but it was really tasty though.

Hsiao Ling adding more and more and more chilli paste into
Niels' bowl of noodles... :)

Not a strand of noodle left in Niels' bowl.  That's how delicious it is, or was... hahaha :D

Another day concluded.....again around midnight.  It was a nice walk back to the hotel in cool temperate weather and after a nice fulfilling meal... 


Next: Final day of 12TCCDF workshops