Bugaku festival at Shitenno-ji
Saturday, April 22nd, 2006I am a bit late for the prime cherry blossom viewing season, but there are still a few about. The weather was warmer today – a nice spring day for the Bugaku festival that I went to this afternoon.
I don’t really know what Bugaku is, although it seems to be a ceremonial dance. I overheard one gentleman explaining to another Gaijin (Japanese word for foreigner) that the costumes are Korean in origin but that’s going back some.
There were masked solos and group dances, monks and priests on procession and dragons too. The pace was pretty slow but so much to look at making it enjoyable to watch. The accompanying music made it quite haunting. The stage it was all performed on was a bridge over a piece of water that contained hundreds of terrapins who surfaced to join the crowd and observe the ongoings. The performance was set in the Shitenno-ji Temple complex. There was also a flea market going on all around selling everything from carving knives to wooden shoes, sqid balls to kimonos and everything in between.