Last weekend was the fifth annual Kyoto Intercollegiate Festival, where Kyoto college kids get to put on a bunch of high-energy dance performances in front of their appreciative peers. It's one of the several times each year that the streets near my place are shut down to host some event or other (other notable times are during each year's Kyoto City Half Marathon, Kyoto Fire Department New Year's Exhibition, and Jidai Matsuri, and also whenever the President of the United States pays a visit).

For some reason, Anthony's preschool made an appearance at one of the performances. I really had no idea what was going on, but Anthony and his classmates were going to be dancing on a stage, so I knew I'd be there with my camera.

So, after rushing home from the ikebana exhibition, Fumie took Anthony to prepare for the dance, and I got my photo stuff and headed over. Other than the time and location, I didn't know what to expect.

There are numerous performance areas dotting the event area, but it was on the main central stage that Anthony would appear. It's at the edge of a big intersection (Nijou and Jingu-michi), so the perfect vantage point happened to be the middle of this big intersection. I got there half an hour early while there was a sparsely-attended awards ceremony of some sort, and set up my big tripod so that it would tower over the crowd that would eventually form in front of me. I'd brought a stool to stand on while I was using it.

While I waited, I had a nice view of the moving crowds around me. Toward the north was the main entrance to the Heian Shrine (also seen on this post):

(I didn't notice until later that almost smack in the center, under the roof of the gate building, is a photographer taking a picture my direction.)

To the south was much of the same. You can see left of center a cluster of blue shirts — that's a group giving a performance.

Finally the kids were ushered in, to await their turn in front of the stage while some college girls did a dance...

They seemed to be wearing the same color-coordinated shirts they wore during their sports day a couple of weeks ago.

The girls are apparently doing the event's signature dance, or something like that. It turns out that later in the day, there were supposed to be some 6,000 people doing the same dance at one time. Anyway, at this point I still had no idea what was going on, but I was taking pictures, so I was happy.

The ladies in the next picture were clearly waiting to perform something, somewhere, but I didn't know what. I loved their clothes, though.

After the girls' dance, it was time for the preschoolers. That'll be another post....