🏮 Tsuwano no Sagi Mai

津和野の鷺舞

Tsuwano, Shimane (Yasaka Shrine) · Every year on 20 July

Traditional performing arts

309 days to go
Rooms around Tsuwano, Shimane fill up while the festival is on.

The Sagi-mai Shinji (Heron Dance ritual) handed down at Yasaka Shrine in Tsuwano, Shimane Prefecture, is a classical performing-arts ritual in which dancers wear a 85 cm heron head and 12 kg wooden heron wings. It is designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, and is performed each year on July 20 and 27 while parading through the town. It originated as a furyu (pageant) of the Gion Festival in Kyoto, and was transmitted to Yamaguchi via the Ouchi clan. It is said that in 1542 (Tenbun 11) the Yoshimi clan of Tsuwano invited it to this area; after a period of interruption, it was revived when the Kamei clan entered the castle by relearning it from Kyoto. It preserves the old forms as they were, and it is even said that it was later exported back to Kyoto and Yamaguchi. The main festival on July 20, timed with the procession of the sacred object across the Tsuwano River, dedicates the dance at Yasaka Shrine from around 3:00 p.m., and afterward tours 11 locations in the town. To the accompaniment of bells, drums, and transverse flutes, two dancers perform elegant movements opening their wings, along with the attendant movements of the bōfuri (pole bearers) and the kakko (small drum). The Kanko-sai on the 27th tours nine locations in the reverse course, and the children's Sagi Odori, added in 1958, is also a highlight.