Every year at the end of August, two-day Basara Dancing Festival is held in Nara. This year 42 groups joined. It is not a dancing contest. The participants keep dancing, dancing, dancing and dancing. Long summer in Nara is gone with the end of the festival.
Let's BASARA! Let's pop! 踊る・なら・そらっ！
According to a calender, autumn started yesterday, September 1st. During daytime it is still hot. But at night, a hint of autumn in the air can be detected here and there - cool breezes, chirping grasshoppers or crickets under a beautiful moon.
Tense moment before a performance. They are the first performers of the festival.
Basara is not a traditional festival with a long history. It started in 1999. I look back at the 8th ‐century Nara which was the capital and the center of the country. At that time Nara was the most modern and the most colorful international city in Japan. Imagine that people from different countries were walking streets in traditional national costumes which must have looked conspicuous and exotic. The performers in the characteristic dresses makes me think how Nara looked like in the 8th century !
Prayers - They are from Sanriku, Tohoku. On March 11th last year, hideous triple disasters attacked Tohoku, earthquakes, Tsunami and leakage of radiation from nuclear power plants.
Drum beating is heart beating! When they stamp their feet, I feel tremors !
They are moving to a site for their last performance.
The burst of energy changes the ordinary to the extraordinary. It's Basara!
He is a great flagman!
Streams of colors swirl up and soar in the summer sky.
Always there is a start, there is an end.
For your reference: What is "BASARA"?
Basara has several meanings.
In the 14th century, there was special aesthetics to make themselves conspicuous by wearing glitzy dresses or doing high-profile behaviors trendsetting the hierarchy system, slighting to the authority of the ruling class. The special aesthetics were referred to as Basara.
Basara is the name of one of twelve divine guardians to protect Buddha.
Basara also means "Diamond" in Sanskrit.
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