Owara Kaze no Bon

Held September 1 to 3 in Toyama's historic Yatsuo district, Owara Kaze no Bon is a three-day folk festival intended to appease the wind deity and protect the harvest from typhoons. Dancers in straw hats move through lantern-lit streets of wooden lattice-doored buildings in slow, deeply synchronized formations, accompanied by shamisen, taiko, and the haunting four-stringed kokyu fiddle. The music and movement have roots in the Genroku era of 1702. Dancing continues through the night, and at its peak the festival draws around 200,000 visitors. The narrow streets and the quality of the music give the event an intimacy that larger festivals rarely achieve.