Before the Dance – Kitamachi Awaodori

Last weekend I was rushing to be in time for the Kitamachi Awaodori festival in Tokyo’s northern Nerima Ward and managed to get a good spot right in front of the famous Aoishinren (葵新連) awaodori dance team. It must have been some sort of delay because they teams all spent quite a lot of time waiting to start the show and since I had nothing better to do I tried to take some (for me anyway) unusual snapshots of awaodori dancers warming up. I don’t know if they were nervous or not, I know I would have been, but this team at least is very experienced so maybe they were very cool about it. I tend to remember the performances by this team due to the many unusually talented younger dancers.

We’re right in the middle of the peak of the Awaodori season and it seems like there’s a handful of different festivals going on every weekend in the greater Tokyo area. It’s really tough on the awaodori maniacs, like me. I don’t know what it is, but the sound of the flute and the drums just trigger something inside me that makes me smile! Is Awaodori addictive? I think it is, at least for me!