One of a number of summer fireworks festivals in the area, Onomichi’s is Sumiyoshi Fireworks Festival is nevertheless a standout. Following a colorful boat parade through Onomichi’s narrow harbor, the fireworks begin after dark. The Hamadonya fireworks group, who have displayed their skill with fire...
One of the most famous festivals in Hiroshima Prefecture is held every summer in the city of Mihara. Enormous crowds enter the streets for three nights in a row, culminating on the second Sunday night in August, to dance wildly to the driving accompaniment of drums, shamisen and flutes.
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Otorii gate in the sea before the shrine. A large wooden ball is placed on a platform and hung from the scaffold by ropes. As the festival begins young men, mostly from the island, enter the water wearing only loincloths. At a signal, the platform bearing the ball begins to swing, rise and dip crazi...
The Kangensai Festival is Itsukushima Shrine’s most important event of the year, with roots going back to Taira no Kiyomori’s reconstruction of the Shrine in the 12th century.
Kangen is instrumental music, as opposed to accompaniment for dances, performed on the wind, string and percussion instr...
Given the importance of rice in Japanese culture, it’s not surprising that its planting and cultivation inspired song and ritual over the centuries. What is surprising, however, is the extent to which such rituals have disappeared in modern Japan. Fortunately, one of the best such events is preserve...
Chiyoda is located in northwestern Hiroshima prefecture, about one and a half hours from the city by car. The town, though small, is famous for its preservation of local performing arts, including kagura dance, the hanadaue rice-planting event, and hanagasa.
In the hanagasa dance male dancers dre...
Nara Tokae Festival Started in 1999, what the Nara Tokae Festival lacks in history it more than makes up for in visual impact. For ten nights in August, tens of thousands of candle lanterns are lit across the city. Hanging from bridges, lining the paths to the city’s shrines and temples, and even se...
