Gujo Odori

A dance to dance

Gujo Odori is a bon odori, a summer dance, held in the old castle town of Gujo Hachiman in Gifu Prefecture. It is described as the longest-running bon dance in Japan, lasting more than thirty nights from mid-July to early September. Each night it takes place at a different venue tied to a neighbourhood festival, so the dance moves through the town over the season.

The town’s own phrase for it is miru odori de naku, odoru odori — not a dance to watch, but a dance to dance. The circle is open to everyone. The music is shamisen, drum and flute with singing, and by tradition the dance called Matsusaka always closes the night.

All night at Obon

The best-known part of the season is the all-night dancing over Obon, which goes on from evening until almost dawn. The hour before first light is described as the high point of the whole summer.

Four hundred years of dancing

People have danced in Gujo for some four centuries. An Edo-period lord encouraged the dances as a way of bringing the town’s social classes together. One of its dances, Kocho Kawasaki, carries a national cultural-property designation, and in 2022 Gujo Odori was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List as part of Furyu-odori, the ritual folk dances performed across Japan to pray for good harvests, the repose of the dead and protection from misfortune.