AWA DANCE FESTIVAL

A dance festival with a history of over 400 years held annually from August 12 to 15 in Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. The festival attracts more than a million spectators every year. There are several theories as to how the dance originally started. Some say that people danced to relieve fatigue from hard farm work during the summer months while others say the dance was for warding off plagues. Every night during the festival, dancers and musicians dressed in yukata (summer kimono) dance through the streets, moving their arms and legs in a choreographed fashion. Men dance in a low crouch while the women dance in a straight posture wearing amigasa hats. The Awa Dance has attracted a growing circle of enthusiastic fans, and the Awa Dance Festival is held in other parts of Japan as well, including Koenji in Tokyo. Eriko moved from Tokushima to Tokyo several years ago and is now living in Koenji. The melody played at the platforms of Koenji Station just prior to train departures is that of the Awa-odori song. Even without the lyrics, she hears the locals chanting, “Odoru ahou ni miru ahou, onaji ahou nara odoranya son, son” (The dancers are fools, the watchers are fools. Both are fools alike. So why not dance?). She hopes to make a visit home this coming summer.