"King Dance" at Mimi Shrine's regular festival in Mihama Town, Fukui Prefecture
2020.06.24
The regular festival of Mimi Shrine is in the final stage, after rough jostling the big ritual wand around 4:30 in the afternoon, by contrast, the solemn and elegant "King Dance" begins. This dance is designated as a Fukui prefectural and Mihama Town's intangible folk cultural property.
The dancer must be an unmarried man, who repeats signature a series of moves in a feminine red costume. The dance continues about an hour with the sound of flutes and drums the shrine's parishioners play.
The dancer puts particular gorgeous peacock decoration on his head. This is a bird-shaped helmet which is modeling Chinese phoenix.
Although the look on his face was unreadable because he wore a mask, I could see he was breathing hard. The move looks slow but it seems pretty hard to dance indeed.
