Japan's Dance Festivals

About this book

Japan's summer is danced. In mid-August a drum goes up on a tower in a thousand shrine yards and whole towns turn in slow circles to welcome their ancestors home — and all year, from the snow harbours of the north to the Eisa grounds of Okinawa, communities say the things that matter most by dancing them together.

Japan's Dance Festivals is the complete guide to that world: 200 dances whose heart is people dancing — the all-night circles of Gujo Odori and the veiled refinement of Nishimonai; Tokushima's Awa Odori and its sister festivals across Shikoku; the naruko-clapping energy of Yosakoi from Kochi to Sapporo; Morioka's Sansa drum parade, Yamagata's Hanagasa and Sendai's Suzume Odori; umbrella, fan and harvest dances; Okinawa's Eisa; Tokyo's Koenji Awa Odori and the student festivals of spring; and the kagura, deer dances and village dances that carry the rest of the year.

Each entry tells you what the dance is, where to stand, how to join — or how to watch when a dance is a rehearsed performance or an offering — and the etiquette that matters for that dance, in a first paragraph written for that dance alone. A second paragraph gives its life: its history, its people, and its place in its town's year. Dances for the dead are treated with the respect they are owed. Seasons are given as the typical time in ordinary years, with a recorded check date, so the guide stays useful year after year.

Whether you want to step into a Bon Odori circle yourself, find your seat at the Awa Odori, or simply travel Japan's dancing year from your armchair, this is the volume that puts all 200 dances in one place.