The neighborhood that I live in has their town's festival in September. Even though I've been to bigger festivals in bigger places, with everything involved it was right around the best competing with Nikko's Shunki Reitaisai. Although the march of a thousand samurai at that festival is difficult to match up with. The festival is the Awa Odori (阿波踊り) festival and revolves around the Awa Odori dance. The festival lasts for two days and involves a parade of the traditional dance each night, carrying mikoshi around town and stands and events at the local shrine.
The Awa Odori is a traditional dance in Japan that first developed in Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku. There are a few stories about the original development of Awa Odori. The first is the dance was created as a celebration to the region's lord Hachisuga after the completion of the local castle in 1587, the 2nd being it was an adaptation of the Furyu dance that was the basis of Nō, traditional Japanese drama plays. The last being from the Bon dance, which is a traditional Japanese dance and holiday when people return to their hometowns to clean the graves of their ancestors and a day in Japanese Buddhism when the spirits of their ancestors return to the household altars. [1] Whatever the origins of the dance are, it has existed in Japan for over 400 years and was developed through the wealth of Indigo merchants in the area during the Meiji Era. [2] The name of the dance Awa Odori's meaning is, Awa being the old name for Tokushima Prefecture and Odori being dance.
For a few weeks before the event, the festival starts to come to life in the town as preparations get underway. These preparations around town are basically just hanging up hundreds of paper lanterns. As the time of the festival gets closer, more and more of the town is illuminated at night by the lanterns hanging above the street and the music of the dance starts to fill the evening air as the performers try to get extra practice in.
There are two places where the lanterns stand above the rest, the beginning of the main street through town and the local shrine. Here, the lanterns are lined up side by side, row on top of row creating a sea of red and white glowing papers. While these lanterns are the most impressive, they are also of a much more practical nature than the others.
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| The beginning of the main street here in town. |
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| The local shrine the day of the festival. |
The writing on these lanterns are the names of companies, local businesses and people who have donated money to the festival. In a way, they are giant traditional 'sponsored by' plaques. Certainly beats the typical boring board with plain font. With about a week to go before the festival, the lanterns are all up and everyone gets excited for the coming festival.
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| The name of the festival are the white lanterns. Directly below the first white lantern on the left is Smile (スマイル) which is the local drug store. |
On the night of the festival, all of the excitement that has been building up finally gets put to use. The town transforms into a bustling lively place as the already narrow for a main street, street gets lined on both sides with tons of people waiting for the dance to come. The same dance is performed by many groups and each group lines up in order off to the side from the main street. Then the first group starts to play music from their traditional instruments in position and after a few measures of song kicks off their dance down the main street.
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| The starting point for the dancers. |
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| The dancers wearing the traditional outfit of the Bon dance (specifically the ones with the hats being the typical full outfit). |
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| The lead dancer for one of the dancing groups. |
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| Some of the traditional instruments used in the dance. |
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| The origins of this dance stems from a drunken celebration due to the completion of the castle with the local lord giving sake to the local residents. [3] I can see a glimpse into how it could have been from these two pictures. |
The dance and spectators are not the only thing happening on the main street during the festival. All of the stores that sell food or drinks set up a stand outside their shop selling popular festival food and drinks to the spectators. The lanterns and bustle of people, many wearing traditional clothes eating and drinking festival favorites being hawked by the shops' small stands really fills the rest of the atmosphere for the dancing. The town becomes unrecognizable from its every day look.
Video of the 2nd day of the festival. This is one of the dancing groups that participate in the festival.
After a few hours of dancing, the dancers take one last pass down the street and at the end of the line, the spectators take their turn and join the dancing. After they reach the end, the dancers take their well deserved rest and the spectators slowly peter out; some dancing their way back home and some stumbling, but all return to their homes to rest for the next day of the festival and the dance.
References:
1. "Learn About the Koenji Awaodori More!," Tokyo Koenji Awa-Odori Association.
http://en.koenji-awaodori.com/more/.
2. Ibid.
3. "Awa-Odori Folk Dance Festival in Tokushima," Japan National Tourism Organization.
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/attractions/event/traditionalevents/a46_fes_awa.html.
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