6 days ago
Japan's Yamagata Hanagasa Festival opens, with 14,000 dancers expected to join
YAMAGATA -- The Yamagata Hanagasa Festival, one of the Tohoku region's leading summer events, began in this northeast Japan city on Aug. 5. Over the three-day festival, 147 groups and about 14,000 dancers are scheduled to participate.
The parade started shortly after 6 p.m., with dancers carrying "hanagasa" hats adorned with artificial red safflowers marching to a chant of "yassho, makasho." The approximately 800-meter parade route was lined with many tourists, and the venue was filled with excitement.
Each day during the festival, from 1:30 p.m., the Yamagata Creative City Center Q1 multi-purpose facility hosts events featuring dance performances and lessons by the "hanagasa dance troupe."
Meanwhile, as the first anti-heatstroke measure of its kind, the local River and National Highway Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is circulating groundwater through pipes of a snow-melting system under part of the parade route's sidewalk to lower the surface temperature. An official commented, "We hope this will help reduce the heat around the spectators' feet, even if just a little."
(Japanese original by Kan Takeuchi, Yamagata Bureau)
