Friday, 7 September 2012

Japanese Nebuta festival with Minami

Today Minami taught us about the 'Nebuta festival'.
It is a Japanese festival held in Summer.
Girls and women wear yukatta which is a summer style kimono. It has big sleeves so when you dance you look graceful like a butterfly. The sleeves have holes so the cool breeze can come in.
The yukatta also have a wide belt called an 'obi'.

Men carry 'nebuta' which are made from paper and are lit up. They show samurai (Japanese warriors) and demons fighting. This represents chasing away bad things and letting good things come.
At Nebuta people drum on the Japanese taiko drums.













People also wear bells so when they dance they jingle and add to the music. When people in the festival throw their bells, happiness and good luck comes to the person who catches them. Minami gave us all some bells to wear.
We danced...
and danced...
and drummed!
Finally we made some origami flowers by folding paper from Japan.
Thank you Minami! We will miss you.

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