I went to the Asakawa Bay Festival!|「海陽で行ってみた！」浅川祭り編
Hi, everyone. Gwenafaye here! Are you enjoying the summer?
こんにちは、皆さん！グウェンです。夏を楽しんでますか？
Working at the Board of Education, the Global team gets a little bit of downtime when school isn’t in session. Since we have some more free time, we’ve been attending the festivals around Kaiyo! The turnout and energy have been great this year, primarily because this is the first year since COVID that many local festivals are going ahead.
グローバルチームの私たちは教育委員会や学校で仕事をしているので、夏休みの期間は少しだけ空いた時間があるよ。なので、最近海陽町のお祭りに行っているよ。今年はコロナ以来、祭りがまた開催されるようになった最初の年なので、人のにぎわいと雰囲気は素晴らしかったよ！
The Asakawa Festival is one of these – on August 1st, it was held for the first time in four whole years! Apparently, the year before COVID, it was cancelled due to a typhoon and bad weather.
浅川祭りはその一つで、４年ぶりに、８月１日にやっと開催されたよ！コロナだけでなく、その前、台風のため中止になっちゃったそう。
There were a ton of food and game stalls wrapping around the main event area and stretching all the way back to the entrance at the port bridge. I saw a bunch I had never seen before – cheese dogs and garlic butter-flavored takoyaki while you catch toy fish, anyone?
浅川港の入り口から会場中心部の周りまでにはたくさん屋台があったよ。見たことがない屋台をいっぱい見たよ。チーズドッグやガーリックバター味タコ焼き、どうですか？：）
After filling up on all the fried food I could handle, the performances began. After a short parade, local kids (most of them our students!) from elementary to high school danced their hardest to some modern songs before the night turned toward the traditional. The local gym and recreation club’s dance team performed an elegant circle dance before the energy ramped back up with our local Awa Odori dance groups (called ren).
揚げ物を食べ過ぎたなと思った後で、ダンスが始まったよ！すごく可愛いパレードの後で、この辺りの子どもたち（ほとんどは私たちの生徒たちだよ！）、小学校から高校までの皆は一生懸命にポップソングで踊っていたよ。より伝統的に、次は着物を着ているおばあさんたちが盆踊りを優雅にしていたよ。また、海陽町の様々な阿波踊り連が始めると、更に盛り上がっていったよ！
Three different groups performed that night, and it was so cool to see the different choreography each group prepared. Although the Awa Odori itself is a relatively simple dance, there are particular styles of performing the same steps – usually divided by gender – and groups arrange themselves in different patterns as they do the steps. They also start off slightly slower before amping up the speed of their steps to the rhythm of the music!
３つの連が踊っていて、それらの振り付けを比べることはとても面白かったよ。阿波踊り自体はほとんど難しくない踊りだけど、性別によって踊り方が一般的に違って、踊りながら連は様々なパターンで踊っているね。また、初めはちょっとゆっくり踊りだすけど、音楽のリズムと共に段々と早くなるよ！
Each group has a couple of different teams typically divided by age and gender – there was more variety amongst the women performers, I noticed, with the largest ren having a traditional ladies group dressed in the amigasa wicker hats and kimono, a group of three women (all mothers) dancing in happi coats alongside their young children, and another group of teenage girls also in happi!
各連は、年齢と性別によって分けたいくつかのグループだよ。女の人については、よりグループの組み方に富んでいることが分かった。例えば、一番大きい連では、編み笠と着物を着ているグループ、法被を着ているお母さんと小さい子どものグループ、それに法被も着ている１０代ぐらいの女の子グループもあったよ！
Once the groups performed, there was a short public dance where the audience could join in with the official rens. (Can you spot Jeff dancing with his ren in these videos?)
連の上演の後で、少しだけ総踊りもあったよ！（ところで、連と一緒に踊っているジェフが見つけられる？）
Finally, there was a blow-out fireworks show over the Asakawa Bay. I love American fireworks, too, but these long, willow-like sparkly ones I have only seen in Japan, and I adore them.
最後では、すごく大きい花火があがったよ！アメリカの花火も好きだけど、この長くて、柳のようなキラキラものは日本だけで見られて、大好きだよ。
This was the first local festival like this I’ve gotten to attend all of, so I really feel like it kicked off the season right for me. If you can catch some Awa Odori this year, I can’t recommend it enough! But do make sure to stay safe out there in the heat!!
これは初めて行けたローカルな祭りだったから、すごくいい「祭りシーズン」の始まりだったと思う！阿波踊りを見に行くのもおすすめですよ！でも、みなさん、すごく暑い天気に気を付けてくださいね！