｜ 1：Introduction ｜ 2：The explanation of each photograph ｜ 3：Interview & Column ｜
1：Introduction（page.2）& Road to Amami（page.4）
P.2
Introduction
The eternal sun that we take for granted to burn through the day’s end slowly wanes into darkness. The glow of the corona is seen as the sun’s disk is blocked off in a
total solar eclipse. The beauty and wrath of nature captivates all in the experience.
The total solar eclipse of 2009 July 22, began its Eclipse path from Varanasi in India through China and into Japan, with the Tokara Islands encompassing the Ryukyu Islands and the Ogasawara archipelagos in the antumbra leading across the Pacific. It had been 46 years since Japan was privileged to experience the sun’s shadow, exceeding the longest totality of the century.
As the world focused in attention to this celestial phenomenon, over 3,000 people from around
space where music and the forces of nature were to bind the masses. The music was to fulfill the role of amplifying the sensations and impressions inspired by the sea, the mountains, the forests, the towering sky limit, the sun’s and moon’s trajections, the flickering stars beyond the whisps of clouds blown away by the wind, and time. There was something more to be reveled from this.
This event was magnificent, beheld in a commemorating moment in the evolving phase of nature, distinct from any other festival of music and culture. Indeed this was the experience out of the possibilities of a life time.
This photo album, with the help, support and expertise of all who contributed to its creation, is the record of the longest 9 day music festival in history held in Japan: The Total Solar Eclipse Music Festival in the Amami Islands.
photo and text by Munehide Ida
P.4
Road to Amami
It has been observed that animals exhibit abnormal and extreme behavior during a solar eclipse. Humankind should be no more different. The basic instincts that boil from within sets our impulses just like all other life forms on the face of the earth.
These are of the stories in legends, and here another was to be born, in the means of a music festival.
The legend begins in 2004. The road from the preparatory stages to the main event composed of almost 30 trips to the Amami Islands, and over 100 meetings in Tokyo, with numerous related events all over the grid, with 3 countdown parties to mark solar eclipse events from 2006.
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translated by Wataru Teramae, Ben Sheardown, Kumi Nagano