Arab News Japan

TOKYO: In the Koenji district of Tokyo on Sunday, 80 groups of dancers performed in the Awa Odori, a traditional dance and music festival originating from Tokushima on the island of Shikoku in western Japan.

The festival was held for the first time in three years due to the pandemic.

The variation of “The Dance of Fools” was exported to Tokyo and attracts well over a million visitors over the two days of the festival.

The original festival in Tokushima still takes place in mid-August and also attracts a million spectators despite being in a rural part of Japan.

Performances take place around the country and in several parts of Tokyo in August. Awa Odori practitioners meet up for processions along streets and through shopping avenues to the sounds of flutes, shamisen, drums and cymbals, all the while waving their arms in the traditional dance manner and emitting small shrill cries to the rhythm of the dance steps.

Koenji’s Awa Odori Festival is one of the most popular festivals, and it attracts groups of dancers from the Tokushima area.

The lyrics sung during this dance, which is over 400 years old, are fairly simple: Erayattcha, erayattcha, yoi yoi yoi yoi!

Odoru ahouni miru ahou

Onaji ahounara odorana sonson! Yatto-saa! Yatto-saa!

(“It’s a party, it’s a party, yoi yoi yoi yoi!

There’re crazy people dancing,

And crazy people watching,

As long as you’re crazy, why not dance! Come on! Come on!”)

The festival attracts all kinds of dancers from all age groups. The gestures and clothes come from rural provinces and fishing villages. The straw Amagasaki hats worn by the dancers were originally to protect from the sun and scare the birds that came to plunder their crops. The women wear light clothes and the gestures of the dancers symbolize the raising of fishing nets.