Aizu Matsuri - Festival

This is the festival to celebrate the beginning of autumn as well as rice harvest season. During three days there were celebrations all day long of witch i visited the evenening lantern parade and the Bandai dancers as well as the samurai procession the next morning.
In the evening events took place in the towncenter where the main road was blocked for circulation. I came early so to see how things would develop.


First of all, no alcohol anywhere! Instead the sidewalk was rowed with stands offering, diverse specialties, like Tako-Yaki, which is some sort of Knoedel made out of octopus. Look here how its made!
So first came the pupils, who were each carrying a lanteren, then the street was open to the bandai dancers. The most impressing thing wasnt the opulence of costumes, but the sheer mass of performers! I didnt manage to count the children, but I estimated the dancers to be a 1000 at the very least (locals told me it was much more!) So there where nearly as many people involved in the dance, than where standing by watching. Perfomers not only came from diverese clubs engaged in some cultural activity but also from local companies, who seemed to have kindly invited their employees to join the celebration.
What they did, was dancing around a main stand at the central crossing of the road, filling it up from one end to the other (about 1km). They where accompanied by the repeated enchantement of a female voice (which i first thought to be playback), who continued to chant for at least three hours long without pause. A really dionysic feast that was and you could feel a rise of temper just without any alcohol, people on the sidewalk gradually joining the dance as the evening advanced.

The next morning, there was a troop gathering at Tsuruga-Choo. Again there where several hundred people involved, wearing different samurai-costumes. They were welcomed by a assembly of the daimyo and other high rank warriors. During the day, they would make their way from the castle, again through the city center. I only watched the gathering, as I had to catch the train to Niigata, to go on to the three sacred mountains of Dewa Sanzan.

You can find the complete album of the Festival here!