Hatsudai Awaodori Festival – Ootoriren

Last weekend I visited the awaodori festival held every year in Hatsudai, not very far from the heart of Tokyo, near both Shinjuku and Shibuya. The Hatsudai festival is always a little melancholic for us awaodori lovers in Tokyo as it is the last of the bigger awaodori festivals in the city (the last big awaodori festival of the region is in Kawasaki next weekend). The festival in Hatsudai is still small and cozy enough to have small town feel to it and the participating teams are relatively small. One of the teams taking part this year was the Ootoriren, a very small team with a lot of energy! I saw several members from the Sancharen taking part as well so I think they had a lot of backup this time!

This year’s festival was the 44th, and you can tell Hatsudai has a long tradition with this form of dance, as they have no less than six local teams of their own! I am already looking forward to the 45th festival next year!