Summer is definitely festival season in Japan. Just a little while ago I had the chance to see a festival around Koenji station. The main appeal of this particular festival was the Awa Odori, and I was particularly interested in this as a dancer. The fact that my co-workers highly recommended me to see Awa Odori at some point and that posters for the festival were all over my neighbourhood certainly helped to pique my interest in it. The cover image for this post is the poster that I saw in many places in the weeks leading up to the festival, taken from the Japanese version of the official Koenji Awa Odori website.
Awa Odori is a centuries old dance that originated in Tokushima prefecture, located on the west side of Japan. According to the English version of the official Koenji Awa Odori website, the dance festival was started in the 1957 as a way to revitalize the market of the town. This is a motive not unlike the Tanabata festival held every year one station over.
After facing some crises and setbacks in the 60's, the Awa Odori festival grew to become large enough that it could attract crowds large enough to block streets and have enough teams to keep consecutive performances going for hours. The performers have become so renowned that they have been invited to perform by organizations from outside of the Japan.
I finished work in the afternoon that day, so I had to miss the first hour or so of the festival. In Tokyo, that usually translates into a difficult time getting a good view of the event. This statement was proven true when we arrived at Koenji station. Some of the usual roads that I would take around this station were blocked off, completely changing the atmosphere of the area. Police were stationed right outside the exits, and signs and volunteers directed us down the packed roads that did remain open for pedestrians.
We were handed out some maps of the area highlighting where the groups would travel through with their performances. Four of the areas were in smaller side streets, and the other four were on the wider main street leading up to Koenji station. My girlfriend noted that the groups probably rotated through the eight performance areas, so we decided to take take up a spot in the smaller areas.
The area surrounding the station was full of crowds almost every step of the way. After we took the map from the volunteers and walked down a one-way street, we came out into a police-controlled intersection. One side was barricaded, presumably to separate the performers from the pedestrians. According to the map, the intersection was where the teams crossed into another performance area. This particular area was so congested, it was almost as hectic as Shibuya crossing.
We made our way through the intersection and into one of the smaller streets, where people were crowded around a performance area. There were so many people that foot traffic slowed to a stop, and onlookers crammed into the stores that were still open for business. We got stuck near the end of the performance area, and we stayed there for some time trying to catch glimpses of the Awa Odori teams that came down. Most people were about my height or taller, so I could barely see anything past the crowd. I'm very sure my girlfriend saw less.
After getting pushed around and basically seeing the backs of many heads, we decided to abandon our post. When the crowd cleared up a little bit during a short break between the groups of performers, we pushed our way through back to where we came from. We tried another stretch of road where the groups were travelling through. This second area was slightly less crowded, and we chanced upon a position where we were essentially in the front row.
Seeing the dancers was a fascinating spectacle, and the performers ranged from small children to seniors. Foreigners and developmentally challenged people were included too, so it was clear that there was some degree of inclusivity with this festival. Of course, the more able-bodied people were given the spotlight in each group, although seniors were also given some time to shine.
Generally, the groups more or less followed the same format: parade down the performance section with the dance, and when they reach the end of the section they would either do some sort of encore with the musicians or do a more extreme version of the dance. There is something about traditional drums that really gets my energy really high, and I could see the same in the younger performers when they would jump around frenetically at the end of their run. The musicians and dancers definitely put on a show with their encores.
I remember in particular a trio of senior men coming down the street as part of the performance, one of them leading the way for the other two while miming how big his man parts were and pretending to squeeze audience members' breasts. Every time he would go up to a woman in the audience, one of his compatriots would give him a solid smack with a toy hammer on the top of his head.
The kids were generally adorable as well. Some of them were young enough to not entirely know what they were doing, and yet they were still organized in their walk forward. The older kids had enough finesse in their step to match with the adults, and they hardly looked like they were old enough to be in middle school.
The festival itself was three hours long. That meant that these dancers would be doing the Awa Odori dance for those three hours, and it really showed on some of their faces that they were fatigued. I saw some people sweating profusely in the summer evening heat, and other were panting as they walked off the performance area. We caught some of the groups in a transition, going straight from one performance area to another. It was clear that these transitions were welcome moments of respite as they took their time to get to the start of their next area and waiting for the previous group to finish.
We left the festival area early after being pushed out of our position by other onlookers. Our spot had gotten crowded with people taller than we were, and we lost our vantage point. We walked through some of the areas the performers used to catch their breath or smoke on our way out of the area. These areas were dimly lit, if at all, and you could really see in some of them that they had spent their reserves of energy.
The festival overall was a good experience, although we didn't get to try any of the street food from the stalls that were in the area. The groups that performed had such good energy that was infectious, to foreigners and locals alike. I could see why this festival in particular has some popularity. My girlfriend took a good quality video of one of the groups, and you could see how they formatted their performance runs below:
If you're around Tokyo in late August, this would be a good festival to go to! Thanks for reading!
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