Yosakoi

Every year the Yosakoi festival is held August 9-12 in Kochi city. Yosakoi started in 1954 to help rejuvenate one of the cities older shopping districts. since then it has become a massive event unique to Kochi city. During the festival approximately 18,000 dancers in different dance groups, usually representing a company or group, preform in different places throughout the city. Each dance group must use wooden clappers called naruko and must use at least part of the yosakoi song in their routine but the music style, costumes, and choreography are all up to the groups to decide allowing for a explosive amount of creativity. Though the majority of the groups choose to use more traditional styles many do some really fun things. One group I saw did an Alice in Wonderland themed dance where the majority of the group were the cards but Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat were also there. My favorite group did there dance to Pirates of the Caribbean music (with the yosakoi words) with a very well done Jack Sparrow leading the group. each group is lead by a truck that plays that groups music and often has MCs and musicians on it. Most groups incorporate children of all ages and some groups were all children. the elementary school groups were very adorable. at the end of the group there is often a flag bearer. the flags can be massive and require a lot of strength and skill to handle. It was definitely worth seeing.