Johana Mugiya Festival (城端むぎや祭)
The melancholic kokyu strings and measured Mugiya dance fill the silk-weaving town of Johana on a single autumn Sunday, with a dance competition at the historic Zentokuji Temple precinct.
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"Elegantly costumed dancers in deep sedge hats drift silently through lantern-lit cobblestone streets to mournful kokyu strings in one of Japan's most atmospheric rural autumn customs."
Owara Kaze no Bon (おわら風の盆)
"Thirteen ornate hikiyama floats parade through the old port quarter of Shinminato on the Toyama coast in a 370-year-old autumn festival of Hojozu Hachimangu Shrine."
Shinminato Hikiyama Festival (新湊曳山まつり)
"Shirakawa Hachimangu's harvest festival, held among the gassho-zukuri thatched farmhouses of Ogimachi hamlet since at least the early Edo period, distributes shrine-brewed unfiltered doburoku sake to all who come, alongside lion dances and ancestral folk songs."
Doburoku Matsuri (どぶろく祭) at Shirakawa Hachimangu Shrine
"The Hatoya district's turn in Shirakawa-go's rolling harvest-festival sequence brings mikoshi processions, shishimai lion dance, and cups of the shrine's own hand-brewed doburoku to a hamlet tucked beside the Sho River gorge."
Doburoku Matsuri (どぶろく祭) at Hatoya Hachimangu Shrine
"The closing leg of Shirakawa-go's five-day relay of rice-harvest thanksgivings, held at Iijima Hachimangu beside the Michi-no-Eki Shirakawa-go rest stop, where each hamlet's distinct dance style sets it apart from the other shrine gatherings."
Doburoku Matsuri (どぶろく祭) at Iijima Hachimangu Shrine
"Young men of the village defend a towering wooden shrine from torch-wielding elders in a ritualistic fire battle that lights up the ski-village night each January 15th."
Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Fire Festival (野沢温泉道祖神火祭り)
"At the foot of Mount Sanbe, the Tane Kagura Transmission Hall keeps alive an Iwami Kagura tradition embedded in the Japan Heritage site of Sabimeyama Shrine."
Tane Kagura Denshokan Teiki Kouen (多根神楽伝承館 定期公演)
"On the tiny island of Tsuken-jima off the Okinawa coast, men perform a rare circle dance of Chinese origin in traditional summer dress to hand-held drums, a centuries-old communal rite confined almost entirely to this one small island community."
Too Udui Dance
"On a remote island of 1,600 people, over 60 distinct dances performed across seven hamlet stages during Obon include the beloved Kitsune Fox Dance, where children in white fox makeup charm crowds that triple the island's population."
Himeshima Bon Odori
"Youth seinenkai groups carry odaiko and paranku drums through the streets of Yomitan village on all three Obon nights, performing ancestral eisa in the living community tradition rather than on a stage."
Okinawa Obon Eisa Michi-uchi (Village Street Eisa)
"Praying for the five-grain harvest and plentiful fishing from Lake Ogawara, neighbourhood teams in Tohoku-machi's Kamikita district parade hand-made dashi floats to the cry of 'Yare, Yare' along a one-kilometre course in one of Aomori's most community-rooted autumn customs."
Tohoku-machi Aki Matsuri Kamikita (東北町秋まつり上北地区)
"In this remarkably preserved samurai village, eighteen hikiyama kabuki floats weighing several tonnes are hauled through cherry-lined streets and deliberately rammed into one another at crossroads in the centuries-old buttsuke collision ritual."
Kakunodate no Matsuri (角館祭り)