Koenji Awaodori 2012

Japanese summer knows a lot of festivals, and among these are many Awaodori festivals: traditional dance festivals. We visited some very small scale festivals, for example the one organised by our local senior center, but also very large, crowded festivals like the yearly Koenji Awaodori.

Awaodori festivals consists of many groups of (choreographed) dancers and musicians: parading while dancing, singing and playing through the streets. They wear traditional costumes, and play instruments traditionally associated with the festival (shamisen lute, taiko drums, shinobue flute and the kane bell). All together, awaodori festivals make for truly energetic and popular events.
The dance has been nicknamed 'Fool's Dance' whose origins date back 400 years. This nickname comes from the lyrics to a common dance song, which translates as follows: Fools dance and fools watch, if both are fools, you might as well dance. The tradition can be traced back to the Tokushima area. The story goes that the local daimyo Lord Hachisuka Iemasa hosted a (drunken) celebration for his citizens to celebrate the completion of the local Tokushima castle in 1586. The amounts of alcohol lead to a citywide outbreak of dancing in the streets, some citizens started 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 lyrics were invented.

The most famous Awaodori festival in Tokyo, is the Koenji Awaodori festival, held on the last Saturday and Sunday of August. We headed there on Sunday afternoon, so we would not stand completely in the back when the dancing started at 5 o'clock. The festival is really popular, and (not surprisingly) very crowded. The parade of dancers and musicians is of course the main event of the festival, but (as with all Japanese festivals) the lines of food stalls selling all kinds of Japanese snacks/foods/drinks can't be missing.
The dancing lasts for no less then three hours, and is filled with different groups (of people young and old) forming a huge parade through the streets around Koenji station. They are wearing beautiful, colourful outfits and put together a amazing performance, and they are obviously having a great time themselves too. Instead of describing the dancers, and the musicians, it's better to just enjoy our photo's & video's and see what this festival of dance and music is all about: