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What to watch for

Jidori with the best Nagauta in Japan

At the Fujieda Grand Festival, the dancing is performed to the accompaniment of Nagauta, Shamisen, and music.

The dance performed on the ground is Jiodori, and more than 80 dancers dance in front of a single stall.

​Nagauta is the accompaniment music for Kabuki performance, and is played with songs, flutes, and drums to enliven the dancing and pulling of the floats.

This style flourished in the Edo period, but is now only performed in Fujieda, Shimada, and Kakegawa which are former post towns of the Tokaido region.

​There is no other festival like the Fujieda Grand Festival, where more than 80 dancers dance together in front of a single stall, and it is said that the dances with Nagauta are the largest in Japan in terms of scale.

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The pulling of the floats

With the pulling of the floats, you can also see the unique way of operating them.

There are two methods in pulling a float: One of the methods is pulling it with a long thick lever stick attached to the front of the float to turn it to left or right, and the other is putting a float on top of a shot put and rotating it.

​Our Fujieda Grand Festival is the only festival in the Tokaido region that uses a long, thick lever stick to pull a float.

Pay attention to the subtle handling of the lever stick when the floats are pulled around the alleys in the Mashizu district.The people known as 'Yataikata' work together to pull the floats.

The Yataikata is made up of a manager, a float attendant, a lever stick attendant, a wheel attendant, a power supply attendant, etc.

A leader called Onigawara stands at the front center of the roof, and when the float departs, the manager delegates overall commands of the float’s operation to the Onigawara.

The Onigawara signals the starting order to the receiver below with a folding fan or clapper called a Chaki, and the receiver transmits the order to the rope and float attendants with the clapper.On the final day of the festival, the pulling of the floats and dance performances take place at the Hondori intersection, so don’t miss it.

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