1 1 The taue-odori, a rice-plant-ing dance in the Ukedo area of Namie. Dressed in a bright kimo-no and wearing the floral head-dress of the saotome role, Rina Matsumoto sounds out the steady rhythm of her hometown’s dance with castanets made of bamboo.2 Male residents wear the masks for this spirit dance in Kumagawa, a ceremonial rite with a history of more than two centuries. 3 In Katsurao, outdoor perfor-mances of both noh and kyogen are offered at a site where a noh stage once stood more than a cen-tury ago.4 One can almost hear the lively beat of drums and handbells in this image of the jangara nenbu- tsu dance taken at Joenji Temple in Iwaki.2 3 4 Alongside the heroic pageantry of the Soma Nomaoi festival, one also finds prayerful rites and ceremonies that are deeply rooted in everyday Hamadori life. Many of the folk rites found across Japan are devotional acts related to agriculture. Prayers are sent, or thanks given, to local kami for the blessings of a good harvest. The point of these dedications is always to entertain the fun-loving deities with the “joyful noise” of song and dance. In modern times, many such events of the traditional calendar year have disappeared, with no one left to carry them on. Indeed, whole bodies of song and dance can vanish in the course of a single generation if they are not transmitted. In Hamadori, though, there are people working to preserve folk traditions.The taue-odori is a devotional dance offered in prayer for a successful rice harvest. It is found, with variations in style from place to place, across the Tohoku region. In the Ukedo district of Namie, where its history dates back to the nineteenth century, the dance is notable for its eye-catching costumes and graceful steps. Customarily it is performed in February, three months prior to rice planting, as part of the Anba Festival of Kusano Shrine.In March 2011, the shrine’s buildings, including its collection of festival costumery, were swept away by the tsunami. Ukedo was designated a disaster risk zone. Its residents evacuated and became scattered far and wide.“I feared the taue-odori would disappear,” says Shigeko Sasaki, a spokeswoman for the Ukedo Performing Arts Preservation Society. “Through word of mouth, I gathered materials; I made costumes by hand; I tracked down local children who had moved to other places. Five months after the disaster, we were able to gather in Iwaki to perform it.”The Ukedo dance interweaves three roles: saotome, depicting the women who plant the rice; saizo, the men who carry the seedlings; and nakauchi, performers who cheer the proceedings on with their drumming and dancing. The saotome wear festive hanagasa hats adorned with paper flowers.As the strains of a simple folk song begin, the scene drops away into a long-ago world. The dancers move to the beat of the drums and the percussive rhythms of bamboo castanets. The movements are slow and deep—drawn, it seems, from the very origins of rice culture itself. 6Ancestral Prayers Echo in Devotional Acts of Song and DanceLocal Towns Staging Their Future
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