Awa Odori- The largest dance festival in Japan

Odoro ahou ni The dancers are fools
Miru ahou The watchers are fools
Onaji ahou nara Both are fools alike so
Odorana son, son Why not dance?

In describing the simple facts of Awa Odori (the dance festival), Wikipedia does a pretty good job: “The Awa Dance Festival is held from 12 to 15 August as part of the Obon festival (my note: Obon is Japan-wide) in Tokushima Prefecture on Shikoku in Japan. Awa Odori is the largest dance festival in Japan, attracting over 1.3 million tourists every year. Groups of choreographed dancers and musicians known as ren dance through the streets, typically accompanied by the shamisen lute, taiko drums, shiobue flute, and the kane bell. Performers wear traditional obon dance costumes, and chant and sing as they parade through the streets. Awa is the old feudal administration name for Tokushima and odori means dance.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awa_Odori).

That just about sums it up, so I guess that’s about all that needs to be said…

Ok, I guess I can talk about the experience a little bit. Obon is a time in Japan that is very interesting because the time for summer festivals originated as a Buddhist custom to honor the deceased spirits of one’s family. This is the time that people usually return to their ancestral homes and clean the graves of their forebears, while the spirits of their ancestors supposedly visit the household shrines that sit in every Japanese home. As any good Texan can tell you, this shares a lot of similarities with the Mexican custom celebrating the "Dia de los Muertos" ("Day of the Dead"). Obon has been celebrated in Japan for over 500 years, and has traditionally included a dance, such as with Awa Odori.

Awa Odori was part of the “Hachigatsu (August) Bon,” which is based on the solar calendar, and the most commonly celebrated one across Japan. Generally, the bigger the city, the bigger the festival, which usually includes fireworks displays (both the visual kind and the loud booms that they have for things like Las Fallas in Valencia, Sp.). We went to one of these displays at Naruto (just north of Tokushima city) the first Friday I was here, and I put a few pictures of that on Facebook. I also was able to witness part of the even smaller Yoshinogawa City festival (which is just across the river from me). During Obon, each village’s dance can depict the region’s history and specialization. For example, regions with a history of mining (like some areas on the island of Kyushuu) may simulate the movements of mines (digging, cart pushing, lantern hanging, etc.), while everyone dances in unison in a group.

Obon festivals in Tokushima (and especially Awa Odori) have been famous for their size, exuberance and anarchy since the 16th century. According to local custom, Awa Odori’s existence as a huge, independent city-wide dance festival dates back to 1586, when the local daimyo (lord) Hachisuka Iemasa, hosted the drunken celebration of the opening of Tokushima Castle. The locals, having consumed a great amount of sake, began to drunkenly weave and stumble back and forth. Others picked up commonly available musical instruments and began to play a simple, rhythmic song, to which the revelers invented lyrics.

On Friday, all first-year JETs and a few of the returners joined a dance troop (ren) called Arasowaren, which loosely translated means “promoting peace and understanding.” This is the larger of the two internationally-oriented dance troops in Tokushima, with over 220 participants. After changing into our Yukata and donning a headband, we attended the pre-dance party. This party included speeches by the leaders of the festival, dance lessons, and of course the Japanese party pre-requisite tables of beer and snacks. After learning the dance and subsequently doing it around the room with the other members of the troop, we were ushered out into the streets to begin our 3 ½ hour experience in of Tokushima city during Awa-odori as part of the Arasowaren. Much of the time was spent weaving around and between other dance troops and spectators to reach our dance places. During this time, we had plenty of opportunities to gawk at the variety of ways that people have created to dance the relatively simple dance steps.

Of course, the main point of that evening was our dancing itself. In various designated parts of the city, we would line up in 5-6 lines, and dance 100 yds. or so through the streets, followed by our band of shamisen, taiko, shinobue, and kane. We danced through two especially large sets of stands during our journey through the streets of Tokushima city. It was a bit nerve-racking to dance a dance we’d learned a couple of hours before in front of a couple of thousand people. I was hoping to get lost in the crowd of gaijin (foreigners)- after all, we all look alike.

In more dramatic fashion: The city itself during our dance was an orgy of sound, lights, smells, and people. Colorful lanterns hung from all the bridges, along the streets, and down the alley-ways. Booms from the fireworks periodically reverberated throughout the city, temporarily drowning out peoples’ shouts (generally: “Yattosa! Yattosa!- which lacks semantic meaning, but helps to encourage the dancers) and the sound of the instruments. Festival food was cooked on literally every corner, or, as John M. would put it: pretty much yaki- anything: yakitori, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, etc. People were crammed into every possible space; they were either dancing, watching, or being pulled into the dance while trying to watch. Indeed, for the more wild, night-time dances, spectators are often encouraged to join.

The two nights we went to the festival were pretty hot, but no one really seemed to care, as the city danced with abandon until the police kicked the noisemakers and dancers off of the main streets, then the side streets, and then finally the arcades/pedestrian thoroughfares. What one who has been here may know of the generally subdued, reverential, humble side of the Japanese culture was nowhere to be seen on either night. While during the day the dances tended to be more organized and stylized (called Nagashi), as the each evening progressed dancers switched to a frenzied dance called Zomeki. Indeed, one of the most surprising things for me to see were young (say, college-aged) dancers having drinking contests where people sat on one another’s shoulders, and the one on top would swig from a huge bottle of sake and pass it on, only then to be spun by the bottom person.

I mentioned that we went to the festival on two successive nights (Friday and Saturday, the two concluding nights). Friday is the one in which we danced, and on Saturday we were set free to go out and witness the mayhem as spectators (as much as one can neglect to participate). This is where the majority of my pictures came from (before my camera ran out of memory due to the videos haha). I’ve uploaded all of the pictures that I have onto Facebook, and hopefully will be able to upload the videos sooner rather than later.

Anyways, this marks the conclusion of a pretty long entry, so if you’ve made it this far, otsukaresamadeshita (literally: I was mr. tired), or “great job” haha.