The is held from 12 to 15 August as part of the

Obon festival or just is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ance ...

Tokushima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 682,439 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,146 Square kilometre, km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture b ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. 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'' (連) dance through the streets, typically accompanied by the

shamisen The , also known as or (all meaning "three strings"), is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument derived from the Chinese instrument . It is played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually b ...

lute,

taiko are a broad range of Traditional Japanese musical instruments, Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese language, Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various J ...

drums,

shinobue The ''shinobue'' (kanji: 篠笛; also called ''takebue'' (kanji: 竹笛) in the context of Japanese traditional arts) is a Japanese transverse flute or fue that has a high-pitched sound. Usage It is found in hayashi and nagauta ensemb ...

flute and the

kane Kane or KANE may refer to: Art, entertainment and media Fictional entities *Kane (comics), the main character of the eponymous comic book series by Paul Grist * Kane (''Command & Conquer''), Tiberium universe character in the ''Command & Conquer'' ...

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 Prefecture, and '' odori'' means "dance".

History

The earliest origins of the dance style are found in the

Japanese Buddhist Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE. Most of the Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism which were established in the Kamakura period (1185－1333). During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was cont ...

priestly dances of

Nembutsu file:玉里華山寺 (21)南無阿彌陀佛古碑.jpg, 250px, Chinese Nianfo carving The Nianfo ( zh, t=wikt:念佛, 念佛, p=niànfó, alternatively in Japanese language, Japanese ; ; or ) is a Buddhist practice central to East Asian Buddhism. ...

-odori and ''hiji-odori'' of the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

(1185–1333), and also in ''kumi-odori'', a lively harvest dance that was known to last for several days. The Awa Odori festival grew out of the tradition of the

Bon Odori or just is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ance ...

which is danced as part of the

Bon Bon or Bön (), also known as Yungdrung Bon (, ), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism.Samuel 2012, pp. 220–221. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but ...

"Festival of the Dead", a

celebration where the spirits of deceased

ancestors An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from w ...

are said to visit their living

relatives Relatives can refer to: * Kinship * ''Relatives'' (1985 film), a 1985 Australian movie * ''Relatives'' (2006 film), a 2006 Hungarian movie * "Relatives", a song by Irving Berlin See also * Relative (disambiguation) Relative may refer to: Gene ...

for a few days of the year. The term "Awa Odori" was not used until the 20th century, but Bon festivities in Tokushima have been famous for their size, exuberance and anarchy since the 16th century. Awa Odori's independent existence as a huge, citywide dance party is popularly believed to have begun in 1586 when Lord

Hachisuka Iemasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Iemasa, the son of Hachisuka Masakatsu or ''Koroku'', was the founder of the Tokushima Domain. He was one of some daimyo who have bad terms with Ishida Mitsunari. His father was a retain ...

, the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of Awa Province hosted a drunken celebration of the opening of

Tokushima Castle was an Edo period Japanese castle located in the city of Tokushima, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. Its ruins have been protected as a National Historic Site since 1957. Its Omotegoten Gardens are designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty. Hi ...

. The locals, having consumed a great amount of

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

, began to drunkenly weave and stumble back and forth. Others picked up commonly available

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

s and began to play a simple, rhythmic song, to which the revelers invented

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

. The lyrics are given in the 'Song' section of this article. This version of events is supported by the lyrics of the first verse of "Awa Yoshikono Bushi", a local version of a popular

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

which praises

for giving the people Awa Odori and is quoted in the majority of tourist brochures and websites. However, according to local historian Miyoshi Shoichiro, this story first appeared in a ''

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English-language news website called , and publishes a bilin ...

'' newspaper article in 1908 and is unsupported by any concrete evidence. It is unclear whether the song

were written before or after this article appeared. Some evidence of the festival's history comes from edicts issued by the Tokushima-han feudal administration, such as this one dating from 1671:

1. The bon-odori may be danced for only three days.
2.
Samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...
are forbidden to attend the public celebration. They may dance on their own premises but must keep the gates shut. No quarrels, arguments or other misbehaviour are allowed.
3. The dancing of bon-odori is prohibited in all temple grounds.

This suggests that by the 17th century, Awa's bon-odori was well established as a major event, lasting over three days—long enough to be a major disruption to the normal functioning of the city. It implies that

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

joined the festival alongside

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising f ...

and merchants, disgracing themselves with brawling and unseemly behaviour. In 1674, it was "forbidden for dancers or spectators to carry

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

s (wooden or otherwise),

dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...

s or

poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

". In 1685 revelers were prohibited from dancing after midnight and dancers were not allowed to wear any head or face coverings, suggesting that there were some serious public order concerns. In the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

(1868–1912) the festival died down as the Tokushima's

indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

trade, which had financed the festival, collapsed due to imports of cheaper chemical dyes. The festival was revitalised at the start of the

Shōwa period Shōwa most commonly refers to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa ** Shōwa era (昭和), the era of Hirohito from 1926 to 1989 * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufactu ...

(1926) when Tokushima Prefectural authorities first coined the name "Awa Odori" and promoted it as the region's leading tourist attraction.

Song

The song associated with Awa Odori is called ''Awa Yoshikono'' and is a localised version of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

popular song ''Yoshikono Bushi''. Parts of it are sung, and others are chanted. The origins of the melodic part have been traced to

Kumamoto is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a populat ...

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

, but the Awa version came from

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

, from where it spread back down to

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...

and

Kansai The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

. The

of the first verse are: ''Awa no tono sama Hachisuka-sama ga ima ni nokoseshi Awa Odori''
What Awa's Lord Hachisuka left us to the present day is Awa Odori The song is usually sung at a point in the parade where the dancers can stop and perform a stationary dance — for example a street intersection or in front of the ticketed, amplified stands which are set up at points around the city. Not every group has a singer, but dancers and musicians will frequently break out into the Awa Yoshikono chant as they parade through the streets: The dancers also chant ''hayashi kotoba'' call and response patterns such as "Ayattosa, Ayattosa", "Hayaccha yaccha", "Erai yaccha, erai yaccha", and "Yoi, yoi, yoi, yoi". These calls have no

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

meaning but help to encourage the dancers.

Dance

During the daytime a restrained dance called ''Nagashi'' is performed, but at night the dancers switch to a frenzied dance called ''Zomeki''. As suggested by the lyrics of the chant, spectators are often encouraged to join the dance. Men and women dance in different styles. For the men’s dance: right foot and right arm forward, touch the ground with toes, then step with right foot crossing over left leg. This is then repeated with the left leg and arm. Whilst doing this, the hands draw triangles in the air with a flick of the wrists, starting at different points. Men dance in a low crouch with knees pointing outwards and arms held above the shoulders. The women's dance uses the same basic steps, although the posture is quite different. The restrictive

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn Garment collars in hanfu#Youren (right lapel), left side wrapped over ri ...

allows only the smallest of steps forward but a crisp kick behind, and the hand gestures are more restrained and graceful, reaching up towards the sky. Women usually dance in tight formation, poised on the ends of their

geta Geta may refer to: Places *Geta (woreda), a woreda in Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region *Geta, Åland, a municipality in Finland *Geta, Nepal, a town in Attariya Municipality, Kailali District, Seti Zone, Nepal *Get� ...

sandals. Children and adolescents of both sexes usually dance the men's dance. In recent years, it has become more common to see adult women, especially those in their 20s, dancing the men's style of dance. Some of the larger ''ren'' (dance groups) also have a ''yakko odori'', or

kite A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have ...

dance. This usually involves one brightly dressed, acrobatic dancer, darting backwards and forwards, turning cartwheels and somersaults, with freestyle

choreography Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

. In some versions, other male dancers crouch down forming a sinuous line representing the string, and a man at the other end

mimes A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium o ...

controlling the kite.

Awa Dance Festivals elsewhere

Kōenji is a district of Tokyo in the Suginami ward, west of Shinjuku. The district's name originates from the old temples in the area. Kōenji is primarily a residential community with easy access to the Shinjuku and Tokyo stations. It was largely un ...

, an area of

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, also has an

Awa Dance Festival The is held from 12 to 15 August as part of the Obon, Obon festival 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 a ...

, modeled on Tokushima's, which was started in 1956 by urban migrants from

. It is the second largest Awa Dance Festival in Japan, with an average of 188 groups composed of 12,000 dancers, attracting 1.2 million visitors. The Japanese production company Tokyo Story produced a version of Awa Odori in 2015 in Paris by bringing dancers from Japan in order to promote Awa Odori and the Japanese "matsuri" culture abroad.

In popular culture

''Awa dance'' is a 2007

Japanese movie The , also known domestically as , has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2022, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced, producing 634 fi ...

starring

Nana Eikura is a Japanese actress, model, and occasional radio show host affiliated with Ken-On Group. Biography She was born in Izumi, Kagoshima, and raised in Sagamihara, Kanagawa.

. The festival is also prominently featured in the 2007 movie ''Bizan'' starring Matsushima Nanako. The novel series and anime '' Golden Time'' prominently features lead cast members along with their friends in their college club, the Japanese Festival Culture Research Society, performing the Awa dance multiple times during the story. Posters representing popular anime characters practicing the Awa dance are also printed every year for the festival. They featured "Fate/stay night", for example, in 2014. In the 1994

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio based in Koganei, Tokyo."Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment". ''Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment''. Retrieved 2020-12-14. It has a strong presence in the animation industry and has exp ...

film '' Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko'' (released as ''Pom Poko'' in English-speaking countries), during the scene where the film's tanuki use their transformation magic to put on a parade of yokai, part of their display includes a procession of tiny Awa dancers.

Notes

References

* Miyoshi, Shōichirō (2001) ''Tokushima Hanshi Tokuhon'' * Wisniewski, Mark (2003) "The Awa Odori Trilogy" in ''Awa Life'', published by TOPIA (Tokushima Prefecture International Association) * de Moraes, Wenceslau (1916) ''Tokushima no bon odori''. * House, Ginevra (2004) "Dancing for the Dead", ''Kyoto Journal'' Issue 58.

External links

Official Japanese sites

Awa Odori by the Japan National Tourist Organization
(click "19" for Awa Odori)
Koenji Awa Odori official site

Japanese

Awa Dance homepage by www.awaodori.net
(Japanese)
Awa Odori blog
(Japanese)
Golden Time official anime website

English/English translation

Awa Dance homepage by www.awaodori.net
(English translation by Google)
Dance of Fools: Awa Odori Festival, Japan by www.pilotguides.com

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090920121745/http://www11.plala.or.jp/hiroba/publications/dyeing_dance/pics/pdfs/E_Body.pdf Dyeing to Dance: an English Translation by Mark Wisniewskibr>Official homepage of Tokyo Ebisuren, a Tokyo-based classical style Awa Odori team
(English site, contains pictures and video)
Awa Odorian
- Awa Odori related blog by an experienced performer (English site, contains pictures and behind the scenes insight)
Awa Odori Paris 2015
- home page of Awa Odori Paris 2015 (English & Japanese site)
Awa-Dance in Koenji "Sui-ren" official website
(English site, contains pictures and information)

Audio and video

Awa Odori dance video
(Japanese)
Awa Dance Festival in Tokushima

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

{{Authority control Festivals in Japan Dance festivals in Japan Festivals in Tokushima Prefecture Festivals established in the 16th century August Summer in Japan 1586 establishments in Asia 1586 in Japan