More glimpses of unfamiliar Japan

For me, the month of October has to be "The Month Of Little Sleep". In our area the rice has been harvested and now it is ti...

The Iwami Kagura Museum is located in what used to be the village elementary school in Ichiyama, but now is home to the village community ce...

Ichiyama Hachimangu is a much bigger shrine than the one we just visited over the river in Eno. We come to most matsuris at Ichiyama as a fr...

We went over to Ichiyama last night for the annual Kids Kagura Festival. Each year there are fewer and fewer kids performing. Partly thats d...

One of the things that attracts me to Iwami kagura is the sheer dedication and professionalism of the dancers, though in fact there are no p...

Gozamai The mat dance Izumo Kagura I have only ever seen this dance twice, and both times it was by the Ichiyama Kagura Group at an Omoto ...

This is a scene from the Kakko-Kirime dance performed last night at the shrine in Kawado. In the opening part of the dance an inept priest b...

Last night was one of my favorite matsuris. It was the Kids kagura matsuri in the nearby village of Ichiyama. We've been every year for ...

For most of the year dawn finds Japan's steep valleys filled with mist. This photo was taken on an early morning hike in the hills above...

This is a fairly typical shot of the Japanese landscape. I took it a couple of days ago on my trip up to Togawa . About 65% of Japan is fore...

The first dance in any Iwami Kagura performance is the Shioharae, in which the dancers purify the dance space in readiness for the kami. Wh...

The Yato River starts at about 900metres up in the mountains of the Mizuho Highlands, right where there is a small ski area. It then travels...