Dancers performed at the Awa Odori festival, on the Japanese island of Tokushima, near Kobe on August 12th.

This century-old festival sees dancers perform a traditional eponymous Awa Odori dance. The event brings over 1.5 million people to the island over the three days of its celebration, traditionally between August 12 and 15.

For the first year after the pandemic restrictions were lifted (in the previous 2022 edition, about 1/4 of the participants were infected with COVID), the famous Awa Odori festival came back in full.

An enthusiastic audience lined up the streets of Tokushima, Japan, to watch performers dance the awa odori dance. Female performers clad in kimonos and wearing a "Torioigasa" braided straw hat danced in the streets on the pointes of their getas to the tune of traditional shamisen, cymbals and drums.

After being restricted because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional Awa Odori festival came back to the streets of Tokushima. Originally thought to have originated in a massive celebration held in the 16th century. ‘Awa’ refers to the region known as modern-day Tokushima prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, while ‘odori’ means dance. To fête the completion of Tokushima Castle, the feudal lord of Awa province, Hachisuka Iemasa, threw the party to end all parties. The townspeople are said to have drunk so much that they swayed wildly as they danced, forming the early steps of Awa Odori.

Today, while less raucous, the festival is still the occasion to celebrate, with the island gathering up to 1.5 million visitors over the three days of the festival.

As a new typhoon, typhoon Lam nears the country, dancers kept performing at the Awa Odori festival, on the island of Tokushima, near Kobe. This century-old festival sees dancers perform a traditional eponymous awa odori dance. The event brings over 1.5 million people to the island over the three days of its celebration, traditionally every 12 to 15 August.