Minako Nakamura

Hachigatsu-odori (August Folklore Dance) in the Tokuno-shimaIsland in Japan.

Nakamura, Minako: "Hachigatsu-odori (August Folklore Dance) in the Tokuno-shimaIsland in Japan", 14th International Congress on Dance Research, p.359-360. 13-17/9, 2000.

Tokuno-shimaIsland is located in the southwestern part of Japan and is not only geographically but also culturally situated between the mainland of Japan and OkinawaIslands, which has original historical and cultural heritages. In the Tokuno-shimaIsland, there are many traditional cultural heritages. Among these heritages, dance is one of the most significant evidence, which
reflects the old Japanese and Okinawa culture.

In this lecture, I will present a traditional folklore dance of the Tokuno-shimaIsland, called Hachigatsu-odori, which means August Folklore Dance.

Hachigatsu-odori consists of more than ten songs and a song accompanies with a dance and a drum performance. A dance is repeated group circle dance and has men's inner circle and women's outer circle.

Hachigatsu-odori has distinctive hand motifs. There are the following three named hand motifs, Manki, which means invitation, Taue, which means rice planting, and Uchikomi, which means strike.

In this video lecture, first I present Hachigatsu-odori's distinctive hand motifs and then show a repetitive unit. In a song of Hachigatsu-odori, this unit repeats several times and accelerates its speed and approaches to the final end.

Hachigatsu-odori is not only characterized by hand motifs but its improvisation aspects of songs.

I then show you a complete example of Hachigatsu-odori.

Acknowledgements: Materials of this video lecture is based on the findings of cooperative survey with Mr. Norio Inagaki and this work was partly supported by the Sasagawa Scientific Research Grant from the Japan Science Society.

Duration: 30 minutes

Equipment required: VHS Video deck (NTSC system) or SVHS Video deck

Ms. Minako Nakamura