NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉

2007/7/23

竹ン芸 Taken-gei Takengei Bamboo Performance

Jp En


Takengei is a traditional folk performance handed down for 250 years in Irabayashi Town in Nagasaki City. It is a series of acrobatic performance on bamboo poles given at the annual autumn festival of Wakamiya Inari Shrine in October.

Accompanied by the festival music of the drums and Japanese flutes, young men wearing white male and female fox costumes climb 10 meter tall bamboo poles and perform acrobatic dances. They do a headstand by putting their legs around the pole, sprawl atop the pole with arms and legs outstretched, or give other fantastic performances one after another. This is the reenactment of foxes, the messenger of the Inari god, becoming lighthearted by the rhythms of the festival music and playing merrily.

The foxes throw down pieces of red and white rice cake and living chickens as the bringers of good luck, at which the spectators rush to pick them up. At the climax scene, one of the male foxes slips off the pole with his head down. As there are no nets or any other protection underneath, all the spectators watch it breathlessly. There are day and night performances given five times for two days in total. Tourists are fascinated by the mystic atmosphere of the night performance.

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address
Irabayashi, Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture 850-0802
name
Takengei Bamboo Performance




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