Tono Festival

Tono Festival is held over two days each September in Tono, a small city among the mountains of Iwate Prefecture. More than fifty groups that keep the performing arts of the district bring them out together, which happens on no other day of the year. The first day is given to the streets around the station, the second to Tono-go Hachimangu, a shrine outside the town.

The performing arts

For a place of its size Tono has held on to an unusual number of these traditions, and they belong to neighbourhood groups rather than to professional companies. Some of the groups take in outsiders who want to join, to push a float, walk in the procession in a happi coat, or learn the flute or the dance beforehand.

The best known is shishi-odori, the deer dance, which more than ten groups in the city keep up. Kagura, the dance performed at shrines, has many groups of its own. Nanbu-bayashi, which the organisers describe as the showy and courtly one, is brought out at this festival and at no other. Sansa-odori and taue-odori, the dance of the rice planting, are danced as well, and mikoshi (portable shrine) are carried through the streets.

The first day

The opening is held at a crossroads in the town, and a procession sets off from there. Through the middle of the day the groups parade down the street in front of the station, one after another; the town's own broadcaster carries it live with a commentary explaining each art as it passes.

Late in the afternoon the deer-dance groups come together on the same street and dance at once, in a mass that is particular to this festival. The performances go on into the evening, in the street and in the hall at the city offices, each group taking the ground in turn.

The second day

The second day is at Tono-go Hachimangu. Yabusame, archery shot from a galloping horse, is performed as an offering on the shrine's riding ground. The form used here, Tono Nanbu yabusame, is about 360 years old, and Tono is horse-breeding country. Kagura groups dance in turn at the shrine's kagura hall through the afternoon.