Dance Duo: Toshikana and Toshimomo
I mentioned last month in my post on Yuriha and Tatsuha that I need a special reason to photograph two maiko (or a maiko and a geiko) together.
In the case of Toshikana (right) and Toshimomo, I wanted to photograph them dancing “Harusame” or “Spring Rain.”
Why?
It’s one of the few dances in the Miyagawa-cho repertoire that uses a dance parasol as a prop, not just a mai ougi (dance fan) or tenugui (scarf).
Most dances in all five of Kyoto’s hanamachi rely only on a mai ougi or a tenugui simply because these are props that all maiko and geiko always carry with them in their ozashiki-kago, the bag they use to hold their personal effects. And there are dances that require no props at all, just hand gestures (te odori in Japanese).
If a customer wants to have a dance like “Harusame” or “Momiji Uri” performed at a gathering, it needs to be set up with the ochaya beforehand so they have the necessary prop(s) on hand.
I worked with Toshikana quite frequently, so I would always set up what we were going to do at our next photo session in the last few minutes of our current one. And that’s how this photo session came about.
I wrote last month about how important the colors of a maiko’s or geiko’s kimono are to me when I’m photographing them. Unfortunately, I was not always able to request or ask about the colors of the kimono Toshikana or Toshimomo wore to our photo sessions, but in this case I had no reason to worry.
As you can see, their kimono complement each other perfectly. In fact, the dominant colors of their kimono (blue for Toshikana and yellow for Toshimomo) are literally complementary colors on the color wheel!
In addition, Toshikana’s kimono features golden leaves, and Toshimomo’s has light blue “streams” of water. The secondary color of each woman’s kimono is the primary one on the other’s.
To top it all off, both are wearing orange obi. Orange is an analogous color to yellow (meaning they are next to each other on the color wheel) and orange is a complementary color to blue (opposite to it on the color wheel).
So, whoever at the Komaya okiya chose the kimono Toshikana and Toshimomo wore to our photo session, they certainly understood their color theory, which is of course one of the many reasons I love to photograph maiko and geiko.
I love color!
Next month I’ll be focusing on another dynamic duo, Mameharu and Manaha. Stay tuned!