Karasuyama Matsuri..

Last week we went to the Karasuyama Matsuri. About 450 years ago, a contagious disease was spread to the Karasuyama area. The owner of Karasuyama castle, Nasu Suketane, prayed to God so that the disease would not spread any more. During the festival, Sumo and Kagura dance were performed and soon the festival was called Yamaage. As time went by, the Yamaage became a luxurious outdoor Kabuki. Yamaage (“Yama” means “mountain” and “Age” means “raise”) is a big festival with Kabuki theater as the main focus. Kate and Colleen were able to go both Saturday and Sunday with the Shionome sans, but due to climbing Fuji, Liam and I only went on Sunday. The stage for the show is mobile and the presentations are done at various locations throughout the city. Here the stage is being pulled down the street to be set up at its next location.

Once at the location everyone works together to drums and bells to set up the stage. The first item set up is the mountains. There are three ranging from small to large. The panels are pulled off the cart and set up on frames.

After all the panels are loaded on to the frame they are hoisted into position.

Here you can see the back side of the mountains. All the panels are marked in Kanji with the location so they can be easily set up and torn down.

As the mountains are being assembled the rest of the stage is set up. When complete a pretty elaborate stage is in place for the show. This festival has been going on for 450 years and every year the mountains and decorations are made new from paper.

The Kabuki was interesting to watch. There were three different shows performed multiple times throughout the city.

- Masakado

Taira Masakado, who was a powerful samurai lived in 900. When Masakado died, his daughter Princess Takiyasha casted a spell using toads to revive him.

Oya Taro Mitsukuni tried to kill her. She knew that, so she was going to get him on her side by tricking him. He found that princess tricked him.

She used spell using lightening and toads to kill him, but the spells didn’t work and she ran away.

- Princess Snake

A daughter of the owner of Karasuyama castle found out that one of the subordinates laid some plots. She wrote a letter to the shogun to reveal his plot and gave it to her chambermaid. Then she commit suicide.

The chambermaid carried the letter to Shogun in Tokyo (it was called Edo at that time) and on the way to Tokyo, she was guarded by a white snake.

- Modori Bashi

A samurai Watanabetuna met a beautiful women on the bridge and they decided to go on a trip together.

When the samurai looked in the water, the reflected women ‘s face in the water was evil. He fought against the evil and cut off her arm.

This short video is from the Masakado story.

It is quite hot during the festival, and to the stage was lined with people fanning the actors during the show. As this was difficult work people rotated in and out of this activity.

This is the finale of the show where the Princess runs away into the clouds.

When the show is finished work immediately starts to tear down the stage and move it to the next show location. During the entire process there are drums and bells being played. After a while this music gets stuck in your head...

When the main heat of the day was finished we went to the Shionome san's parents farm house to change into yukatas for the evening show. I was tired from Fuji and slept while all the activity was going on around me.

All the children dressed and ready to go back out to the festival.

And Kate and Chizuko san in their yukatas.

As everyone was getting dressed a huge storm rolled in. It was too much rain to go out in so we waited inside the farmhouse and the children played.

After a few hours we decided to venture out and back to the festival. It was still raining quite a bit so we went to Taka sans sister's paper shop. Dinorah, Colleen, and Tora kun decided to make paper post cards while we waited.

I have explained this process a bit before, it takes multiple dips to finish as a small layer builds up each time.

Finally the rain let up enough to at least go out with the umbrellas so we hit the streets, watched more of the festival, and ate some festival food.

While raining one of the shows took place inside a building, rather than outside. Dinorah held Colleen up so she could see better.

Everyone all dressed up at the festival, even Taka sans mother made it out dressed in her yukata, she is on the far left.

One of the stops on our walking route was back to the Karasuyama sake factory. They were open and had free samples for adults to try, again I had to drive and so could not participate. I did snag some sake flavored ice cream. It was pretty good, with only a light sake flavor, the rest was all tasty ice cream..

For the last show the rain had basically stopped. It made for a very comfortable temperature to watch the show. It was beautiful with lit up in the evening and the fireworks were even more effective at night.

Here is a little bit of video from the night show. We had a great time at this festival. It is noticeably different than the others we have been to. I would recommend this festival to anyone.

That is all for this post, have a great week...