Festival Dancing!

Back in August, it seemed like there was a festival every other night. August is festival season in Japan, and many of the festivals center around the Obon holiday. Obon is a time when people welcome back their dead ancestor’s spirits into their home for a few days. A lot of people visit the graves of loved ones, and place flowers and incense there. At the end of Obon, they say farewell to the dead until next year. It’s a really interesting holiday to me because we don’t really have anything like it in the U.S. In Matsue, on the final day of Obon, people light lanterns that represent their dead relatives, and send them down the main river in the city. I wasn’t able to go this year but the pictures I’ve seen are really beautiful.

There was an Obon festival in Yasugi over a few days, and one of the other ALTs asked if I would like to dance in the festival with a youth group. Despite being a terrible dancer, I said yes because I figured it would give me a chance to meet some young people in town (believe me, there aren’t many). I went to just one practice before the festival, but luckily, the dance wasn’t hard to learn. The group was about 25 young guys and girls and our dance was Olympics-themed. There were some sports moves and we all dressed up like athletes. Here are some pictures from practice. 

We had people dress up as basketball, soccer, track, volleyball, tennis, judo, and swimming athletes 

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The volleyball team!

Another group getting ready to perform

The tennis wearing hilariously tiny outfits

Pre-performance huddle

A view of the street the festival was on

Our group!

Here's a video my friend took of us dancing. Thankfully they put me at the back of the group :)

There were other dance groups in the festival (including a group that danced the famous dance from Yasugi, Yasugi Bushi) but our group ended up taking the first prize! It was a great experience and I hope I can do it again next summer!