is a traditional rice-planting
dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
in
Akiu, now part of
Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...
,
Miyagi Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the nort ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Performed since the seventeenth century, ten female dancers accompanied by two or four males enact a repertoire of six to ten dances to the sound of
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
, drums and bells. In 1970 measures were taken to document the dance and in 1976 it was designated an
Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property
A is administered by the Government of Japan, Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), and includes Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan, tangible properties (structures ...
.
In 2009 Akiu no taue odori was inscribed on the
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
See also
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Japanese traditional dance
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Traditional Japanese music
Traditional Japanese music is the folk or traditional music of Japan. Japan's Ministry of Education classifies as a category separate from other traditional forms of music, such as (court music) or (Buddhist chanting), but most ethnomusicolog ...
*
List of Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties
This is a list of 327 Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties of Japan.
Criteria
# It must exemplify something original in the Japanese people's everyday life in terms of origin and content, and be typical.
# It must exemplify the process of ...
*
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
*
Matsuri
Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in Traditional Chinese holidays, traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time ...
References
External links
*
UNESCO documentation
Culture in Miyagi Prefecture
Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties
{{Japan-festival-stub