The Month of Little Sleep part 3

Sunday night was matsuri downriver in Kawahira, a village I always enjoy visiting because of the friendliness and genrosity of the villagers....

The hachiman dance was in full swing as we arrived around 11pm. Unusually, Hachiman and his aide were being danced by two young women. Girls and women dancing kagura is unusual. A few groups have started to allow girls to dance, but it is not the norm.

Even more unusual was the fact that these two young women were not from the village, they were not even from the area. They are students at the university up in Matsue and for the past year they have been making the 2 hour drive once a week to come down and practise in the village. They danced well and the villagers were very appreciative of their help in maintaining the traditions....

Next dance was Suzukuyama, a classic battle between the good guys and the demon.

Past midnight and the next generation of dancers and fans are still keeping up.....

Next was Yasogami, and extra long dance because of the stand-up routines and pantomime and slapstick. In this scene one of the brothers attempts to woo, unsuccessfully, the princess....

1:30am and Jinrin starts up....

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After watching a few dances up at the matsuri in Kanzui, it was time to head back to our own matsuri in Tanijyugo.

The Kakko dance had just started. In this video we see the main character attempt to summon the god Kirime by finding the correct location to place the sacred drum. Not being knowledgeable about such things he is unsuccesful and his dance veers towards a comical jig.

Next up was Yasogami, a tale about Okuninushi, the hero, and his 80 brothers. In this first scene the 80 brothers, represented by 2 of them, attempt to kill Okuninushi but end up beating themselves up. Sections of the dance descend into comedy and pantomime.

The end of the Yasogami dance is the traditional swordfight wherein Okuninushi dispatches the brothers in succession.

Next up was Hachiman, the kami of the local shrine. In our groups version Hachiman has an aide and they fight 2 demons. Being the god of archery, Hachiman hills the demons with arrows rather than swords.

Around 3am the Ebisu dance was performed, but in this instance 2 Ebisus danced. Like all kagura dances it lasted 45 minutes and has many different sections and these 2 little boys did amazingly well. The most important part of the Ebisu dance is when he throws out lucky candy to the audience.

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On Wednesday night we headed to the Hachimangu shrine in Uyagawa, a village on the coast between Gotsu and Hamada. I'd never been to thye matsuri here before and so didn't know what to expect. What we found was quite a big matsuri with 3 or 4 stalls by vendors from outside the village, so it was more like a town matsuri.

The shrine did have a big kagura-den, but the village has no kagura group so the Otani group from Hamada were invited to play.

The first dance we saw was Yumi Hachiman, starring the kami of all Hachiman shrines, equated with mythical/legendary Emperor Ojin. Some groups have him dancing with an aide, but here he was alone to fight the flying buddhist demon from the sixth level of hell.

Hachiman is associated with archery, and the demon is dispatched by arrows.

In previous posts I have written about all these dances, so if you want to know more just enter the dance title in the search box or click on the tag links to find more info.

The next dance up was Yasogami, the story of Okuninushi and his "80" brothers, who are pissed off that the beautiful Princess Yakami refuses their advances and instead chooses to marry Okuninushi.

In this version the 80 brothers are represented by just one on stage, and are made to appear rather dumb and dorky through comedy and pantomime. At one point the brother spends a good minute or 2 picking his nose and then flicking it into the audience.

October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 8

The eighth matsuri we visited in our October Matsuri marathon was our own village's matsuri. The shrine was packed when we arrived, and stayed packed all night. A large chunk of the audience was composed of young people, especially young women. It seems the Tanijyugo group has grown in popularity and now has many fans from outside the village.

The kids did a great version of Jinrin, and showed the same dedication and professionalism as the rest of the group.

In the Kurozuka dance the leader of the group played the priest. Buddhist priests appear in many of the dances, though nowadays kagura is classified as "shinto", historically it has a lot of buddhist influence, not just in the stories, but in the mandalas that compose much of the dance movements.

The evil kitsune appears first in the form of a beautiful maiden. All the female parts in kagura are played by males, but the hands often give away the gender of the dancer.



At one point the hapless priests assistant climbs up into the tengai and the fox follows and they fight suspended above the floor. This is unique to Tanijyugo group, and a specially strenghtened tengai held up by chains is used.

3 a.m. and the orchestra shows signs of flagging :)

This was the first time I saw our group perform Yasogami, with Okuninushi's 80 brothers represented by 2 fools.



In this part of the dance Okuninushi and his brothers perform a dance that is normally done using swords and when done properly is quite exciting and complex. here though the bumbling brothers make a mess of it.

Princess Yakami

Yakami Hime was a beautiful princess ( as all such princesses must be) in the land of Inaba, now western Tottori. She appears in the old myth The White Rabbit of Inaba.

In Izumo, Okuninushi's 80 brothers, known as the Yasogami, head off to Inaba to try and win the princess's hand. Okuninushi was relegated to baggage carrier for his brothers.

On a beach they discover a sick rabbit, and the yasogami are cruel to it. When Okuninushi arrives he helps the rabbit, and seeing his kindness, Yakami hime falls in love with him.

Eventually Okuninushi marries her, but later dumps her so he can marry one of Susano's daughters.

The photos are from the kagura dance Yasogami, performed here by the Tsuchi Kagura Group at last years Gotsu kagura Festival.