Hikiyama Matsuri
Japan
- Nagahama, Shiga PrefecturePosted on April 15, 2010 by Stefan
Filed under Gallery, Hikiyama, Matsuri, Nagahama
The Hikiyama matsuri in Nagahama happens each year from 13th to 16th of April. The highlight of the festival is on the 15th of April when young boys perform Kabuki plays all day long. Back in 1629 women got banned from performing Kabuki and all roles (even female ones) had to be performed by men. During the Hikiyama festival all of the Kabuki will be performed by young boys and i was actually quite impressed by their performances. The quality of the plays was just amazing and i am sure they must have spent months of intense training to take it to this level. This is no ordinary school play of 5-10 year olds – it’s professional level theater play and it was a pleasure to watch (even though i didn’t understood much).
The big hikiyama floats looked absolute wonderful. They are quite large and acted both as transport as well as stage for the young performers. During the morning hours of the 15th all of the floats will be located at the Hachiman-gu shrine .. it does get quite crowded but usually the masses move between performances so with a bit of patience i managed to make my way past the crowd and get close enough to take a couple of snapshots.
Transport : JR Hokuriku Honsen Line to Nagahama Station, from there you can walk on foot to all the locations.
Website: Nagahama Tourism website has a lot of info on their website (all in Japanese).
A serious small town festival – they wouldn’t allow the performances to be unsatisfactory. It would reflect badly on too many people, the town and its history and traditions! Without the festival it’s a dull town.
Aren’t most towns dull without a festival going on
?! … I didn’t really spend a lot of time in Nagahama to have much of an opinion about it, but the festival itself was certainly worth the visit! Another matsuri otaku colleague (over at http://shigaenthu.shiga-saku.net/e423999.html ) managed to take some nice snapshots of the festival during the evening. I wish i also could have stayed a bit longer, but i had to return early to take care of our dog.