We're beginning a series to introduce the people behind this crowdfunding campaign! Some of us have been doing yosakoi for a long time, while some others just got started. Hopefully hearing their stories will make you more excited about our project!

Ito Yosakoi @ Cherry Blossom Festival 2017

Hi all! I'm Daniel Rolandi. I set up the campaign page and work with some others from Australia, Poland, and Japan to provide quality content in our campaign updates!

I'm currently part of Ito Yosakoi, a yosakoi group in San Francisco, USA. The picture above is from 2017. It's surprisingly hard to find pictures of me during a dance that aren't partially covered by arm or sleeves!

Teaser for a future post! Black-yellow-black should remind you of naruko.

One of the things I've always wanted to do in life is to sew clothes and crafts! Thanks to yosakoi, I have the opportunity (or rather, the motivation) to learn and practice sewing seriously. I haven't gotten to make a happi properly, but I'll get there someday!

Performing with 'Kokusai Kouryuutai' team at the government offices

In summer 2018, Ito Yosakoi was invited to Kochi to be certified as Yosakoi Ambassadors. I'll write a post to talk more about Yosakoi Ambassadors in more details, but in short, we were tasked to continue doing yosakoi and to spread it around the world. That, and getting to know other yosakoi teams around the world got me really pumped up about yosakoi!

We also had the opportunity to join the yosakoi team named ‘Kokusai Kouryuutai’ (see picture above). It was my first time dancing with that many people (more than 60 people, I think). While Japanese teams can have up to 150 people, the most I've ever danced with in the US was maybe 12 to 14 people at the time. I got a lot of excitement from fellow dancers and also the Kochi people in the audience who'd stand on the sidelines fanning us with the uchiwa. It's an experience I would love to have again!

Hopefully that got you excited! Feel free to head over to the campaign page and read more :)

// Daniel