Awa Dance : August 12th – 15th, 2011 Are you gonna be a "Dancing Fool" or "Watching Fool"?
Tokushima city on Shikoku Island is less than an hour away from Tokyo by plane and connects with big cities in Kanasai like Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe via frequent bus services. There is a big festival which draws 1.35 million people into this smaller city with 0.26 million population for four days from August 12. It's Awa-Odori. The Awa-Odori features folkdances performed to welcome the souls of ancestors in the Bon season, from July to August. It is well known throughout Japan for these words, which are voiced to set the rhythm, regardless of their meaning:'It's a fool who dances and a fool who watches! If both are fools, you might as well have fun dancing!'. The dance dates back to 1587 when the feudal lord Hachisuka Iemasa (1558-1638), in celebration of newly-built Tokushima Castle, offered sake to the people of the castle town; the citizens became so drunk they started to dance in an unsteady gait. Awa is the former name of Tokushima. The Awa-Odori is characterized by irregular steps and by the jovial and energetic up-tempo rhythm. Separated into groups of men and women, the dancers parade through the city while dancing to music played on drums, gongs used when praying to Buddha and at festivals, three-stringed Japanese musical instruments, and flutes. The basic rule of this dance is to move your right arm forward with your right leg and your left arm forward with your left leg in turns to the two-beat rhythm.
The daytime attraction is the famous Selected Awa Dance by groups of several dozen dancers giving graceful performances on stage (admission charged). After 6 p.m., the town becomes enveloped in greater fervor. The excitement reaches fever-pitch by 10:30 p.m. in various parts of the city - parks in the city center, dance stages called enbujo where you can watch the dance up close, Odori Hiroba where even spectators sometimes join in the dancing, Odori Road linking the dance stages and Machikado Hiroba set up by neighborhood associations, as well as local shopping areas. Even if your itinerary will not allow you be in Tokushima city on any one of these four days, don't worry! There are uncountable Awa-Odori festivals through entire Tokushima Prefecture in August as well as even in Tokyo.
