MONTHLY NEWS
October 2002

Super Yosakoi Festival in Tokyo

Tokyo's Harajuku district is a center of young people's fashion and culture in Japan. On August 24 and 25 the Harajuku-Omotesando Festival Super Yosakoi 2002 was held there. There were three stages where a dance called the yosakoi naruko odori could be seen, including one stage at Meiji Shrine. There was also a big parade down Omotesando, the main street of the Harajuku area. During the two days, approximately 1 million people came to see dancers dance to the sounds of rock, samba, wadaiko (traditional Japanese drumming), and dance music. The dancers performed powerfully and beautifully, and the audiences gave them enthusiastic applause.

In truth, the original Yosakoi Festival started in Kochi Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in 1954. It was held for the forty-ninth time there this August, when 39 dance teams comprising 3,700 participants took part. Dancers at the festival hold a percussion instrument called the naruko (bird rattle) in both their hands. The naruko was originally used as a tool to chase away sparrows that would eat farmers' rice crops. It is made of a series of small wooden boards with hollow bamboo sticks attached to a long rope.

Kochi enjoys a warm climate that allows rice to be harvested twice a year, and the naruko has long been a very important tool for the farmers that live there. The people of that area created the special dance to show their love for the naruko. Nowadays, most of the dance teams taking part in the festival have their own uniforms, coordinating the color, material, and shape of their costumes.

During the Yosakoi Festival, participants carry a naruko in each hand, and as long as the team incorporates a melody called "Yosakoi bushi," they are free to arrange the music any way they want. This freedom is what has made the Yosakoi Festival so popular, and there are new, unique versions of the event springing up across Japan all the time. At present there are nearly 100 such festivals all around the nation.

The Super Yosakoi 2002 in Harajuku is one of these newer festivals. A total of 42 teams with 2,300 dancers came from different parts of Japan to take part. This was only the second year that this event was held in Harajuku, but this time 10 teams from Kochi took part, so the Harajuku version of the event has been called the most authentic outside of the original one in Kochi. There were also four teams composed exclusively of kids in junior-high school or below.

One of these teams, Ranburu Minami, was a group of elementary-school students from Shizuoka Prefecture, the youngest member of whom was just seven years old. Natsuki Sugimoto, a 12-year-old member of the group, said, "I was really nervous at first, but I was able to dance with confidence after so many people clapped us." Another member, 11-year-old Haruna Mizuochi, said, "The dancers from Kochi were great. I want to practice more and become good and then go dance in Kochi." Risa Sako, a nine-year-old member, noted, "The people who watched us dance all smiled and clapped for us. This made me really happy, and it was a lot of fun. I really like Harajuku now." All of the members stated that they hope they can participate next year, and the group's sponsor, Yutaka Urae, replied, "The upper age limit for dancers is 12, or sixth grade, but we might let those kids who will enter middle school next year continue to participate if they have a strong desire."

The original Yosakoi Festival in Kochi will be held for the fiftieth time next year. Will the Super Yosakoi in Harajuku continue this long and develop a tradition of its own? The kids who participated this year will continue to do their best to make this dream come true.

Photos: (Top) Kids dancing in Harajuku; (second) A box of naruko; (third) The kids gave the performance their all; (bottom) The Ramburu Minami team dancing. (Harajuku Omotesando Keyaki Association)