YOSAKOI SORAN FESTIVAL
YOSAKOI SORAN FESTIVAL is one of the biggest festivals in summer in Hokkaido. It has a big parade of energetic dancing. It is held in June. This year it is going to be held from June 9 to 13.
YOSAKOI FESTIVAL is originally from Kochi prefecture. In 1991 a university student in Sapporo saw the YOSAKOI FESTIVAL in Kochi . He was impressed with the energetic dancing and wanted to have a festival like that in Hokkaido. He mixed the Yosakoi dance and Soran-bushi, a traditional folk song in Hokkaido and created a new festival. In 1992 YOSAKOI SORAN FEATIVAL was born.
The rules of participation of the YOSAKOI SORAN dance are only two.
The first is to use the music of Soran-bushi or variation of it.
Soran-bushi is a traditional folk song of fishermen in Hokkaido. “Soran” is a chant of encouragement that fishermen use when they catch fish. The Soran-bushi of modern arrangement is usually used for YOSAKOI SORAN dance.
The second is to use naruko for dancing.
This is naruko. It is used for the original YOSAKOI dance in Kochi, too. It was originally used to scare birds in fields. The sound of naruko makes the dance lively.
There are only these two regulations for the dance. So each dancing team creates their own dance and costumes. There are various kinds of costumes. It is one of the interesting things to see in YOSAKOI SORAN FESTIVAL.
This is one of the typical costumes for YOSAKOI SORAN dance. It is made from tairyo-bata. Tairyo-bata is a flag used on fishing boats. “Tairyo” means rich fishing. “Bata” or “hata” means flag. Fishermen put the flags on their boats to wish good luck for fishing. Each fishing boat has its own flag with the name of the boat on it.
For the first YOSAKOI SORAN FESTIVAL in 1992, 1,000 dancers participated and 200,000 people came to watch. Last year, 44,000 dancers participated and 2020,000 people came to watch the festival. The festival is getting bigger and bigger. More than 300 dancing teams participate not only from Sapporo but from all over Hokkaido and Japan.
Now in Hokkaido, and othe places in Japan, it is very popular to dance YOSAKOI for school events and local events. Many people enjoy dancing YOSAKOI. YOSAKOI unite people and people encourage the school spirit or community spirit through dancing together. YOSAKOI SORAN dance is now a familiar seasonal event in summer in Hokkaido.