Situated just over 6 km south-southwest of Kyoto, Iwashimizu Hachimangū was closely associated with the court, and gagaku was often performed by musicians affiliated with the shrine. The Iwashimizu Festival, celebrated in mid-September, is a colorful pageant of Heian culture, deriving from the Hōjō ceremony, a ceremony with Buddhist origins involving the release of fish and birds into the river at the foot of the mountain (Otokoyama) on which the shrine is situated. Three portable shrines, transporting the godheads, are carried in a long ceremonial procession from the summit to the foot of the mountain and back again, accompanied by 500 jinin (‘god attendants’). Musicians wearing red outer robes perform music at various points. After the ceremony for release of the captive creatures, the elegant bugaku dance Kochō (‘Butterflies’) is performed on the bridge Ango-bashi.

Bugaku dances are also performed in April at the Gochinzasai (ceremony commemorating the shrine’s founding).

(Photographs supplied by Iwashimizu Hachimangū)

The annual festival held in May by the two Kamo shrines is commonly called the Aoi Matsuri, and is one of Kyoto’s three main festivals, rivaling the Gion Matsuri of July and the Jidai Matsuri of October. At the ancient Heian court, the Aoi Matsuri was Kyoto’s most important annual festival. The spectacular imperial procession held on the 15th of the month was one that members of the noble classes always vied to view; there is a fascinating account in the 9th chapter of Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji), Aoi (‘Heart-to-Heart’ in Royall Tyler’s 2001 translation).

Processions led by imperial messengers deliver offerings and sacred texts to be read to the two Kamo shrines, and accompanying musicians and dancers perform azuma-asobi. After an announcement by the imperial messenger, the musicians play as horses are paraded, after which the dancers take the stage to perform Suruga-mai and Motomego-mai. As a rule, the costumes for azuma-asobi are white, but those used for performance in the Aoi Matsuri are more colorful: the dancers wear red outer robes, the musicians wear violet outer robes, and all wear swords in the style of ancient military uniforms. Today’s Aoi Matsuri presents us with a brilliant picture of Japan’s ancient imperial festivals.

(Photographs supplied by Shimo-gamo Jinja)

Fushimi Inari Taisha is the head shrine of the more than 30,000 Inari shrines throughout Japan. On November 8 each year, the Hitaki-sai is performed in thanksgiving for a plentiful harvest. This practice derives from ancient court ceremony, and was revived in the 19th century after dying out in medieval times. After a ceremony in the main shrine building, over 100,000 wooden tablets collected from worshippers throughout Japan are burned in a ritual bonfire, accompanied by chanted prayers for good fortune. In the evening, a performance of mikagura begins. To the accompaniment of the zither wagon, transverse flute kagura-bue, and reedpipe hichiriki, mikagura songs are sung, and a shrine priest dances the Ninjō-mai, holding a branch of the sacred sakaki tree with a white hoop attached, which represents the Sacred Mirror. Ninjō is the title given to the dancer, and refers to his role as director of the ensemble. His dance is an ancient, solemn one.

(Photographs supplied by Fushimi Inari Taisha)

Yasaka Jinja, also known affectionately as Gion-san, is most famous for the Gion Matsuri held each July. There are performances of gagaku on many other occasions throughout the year, including: a bugaku performance for Setsubun (the day immediately before the beginning of spring) in February; a mikagura performance on the day before the June regular festival; an azuma-asobi performance on the day of the festival itself; and a bugaku performance in November. Bugaku dance performance at Yasaka Jinja started in 975, when it was first undertaken in prayer for the recovery of the ill Emperor En’yū (959–91, r. 969–84). It died out in the medieval period at the time of the Ōnin disturbance (1467–77), but was revived in the 19th century. For the November bugaku performance, two enormous drums (dadaiko) that dwarf their players are set up in front of the dance pavilion. The repertoire changes each year, and can include such dances as Kanshū, Karyōbin, Tōrika, and Genjōraku.

(Photograph supplied by Yasaka Jinja)

Chion’in, the head temple of the Jōdo sect of Buddhism, holds a weeklong memorial ceremony for its founder, Hōnen Shōnin (1133–1212), from April 18 to 25 each year. The ceremony, called Gyoki Daie, is the most important of the annual ceremonies of Chion’in, celebrated by more than 100 priests who gather from places throughout Japan. During this period, 2 services, each lasting more than 2 hours, are held each day, and gagaku is performed as the priests enter, and in accompaniment to some of their Buddhist chant (shōmyō). The sound of gagaku accompanying the slowly intoned chant fills the main hall of the temple, and produces a solemn atmosphere unique to it. Gagaku is also performed as the priests repeatedly intone the nenbutsu (worshipful repetition of the name of Amida Buddha) while a set of clappers (shaku) is sounded, as they walk around the hall, slowly at first and gradually faster (shaku-nenbutsu-gyōdō). As the priests exit, the Jōdo-sect hymn Tsukikage (‘Moonlight’), which sets one of Hōnen’s waka poems, is sung.

(Photographs supplied by Chion’in)

The Nara temple Tōshōdaiji, founded in 759 by the Chinese priest Jianzheng (Jp. Ganjin, 688–763), has a post-war tradition of performance of the dance Bairo. This piece is one that originally belonged to the class rin’yūgaku, or ‘music of Champa,’ an ancient Vietnamese kingdom. This repertoire was transmitted to Japan by the Champan priest Fattriet (Jp. Buttetsu). Bairo was originally one of the dances performed at the temple’s Busshō-e (celebration of the Buddha’s birth) on the 8th day of the 4th month, and gave the alternative name Hero-e to the ceremony. Bugaku dance is no longer performed at the Busshō-e; instead Bairo is performed in May at the Bonmō-e, a memorial ceremony for another priest associated with the temple, Kakujō (1194–1249). This ceremony has the popular name Uchiwa-maki, since uchiwa fans are scattered from the temple’s drum tower during the ceremony. Bairo, for 4 dancers, is performed in the orthodox bugaku tradition as an exceptional Dance of the Right with tōgaku (‘Tang music’) accompaniment, but the version performed at Tōshōdaiji is classed as a Dance of the Left, and includes some unusual choreography, including distinctive foot movement known as hero-bashiri. This version is a revival based on dance notation of the old Nara Music Office. The torikabuto (‘bird helmets’) worn by the dancers are also distinctive.

(Photographs supplied by Nara City Tourism Association)

Himuro Jinja derives from the enshrinement of the god of ice in a himuro, or ancient icehouse, situated in the Kasugano area of Nara.

This shrine has long had connections with gagaku; it functioned as one of the headquarters of musicians of the Nara Music Office from the Kamakura period (13th century) until the Meiji Restoration. Bugaku dance is performed there today during the evening session of the Regular Festival, on October 1. Since the Kamakura period, this festival had been run by musicians assigned ranks in the Konoe-fu (Inner Palace Guards) who also worked as shrine priests or attendants at the shrine.

On the day of the festival, bugaku dances transmitted at the shrine are performed in a dance pavilion erected during the Edo period (17th to 19th centuries). Although the Nara Music Office was abolished in 1870 with the establishment of the Gagaku-kyoku in the new capital of Tokyo, some musicians remained in Nara, and it is their tradition that can be viewed at the shrine today.

Bugaku dance is also performed at the Kenpyōsai on May 1.

The collection of the shrine includes a wooden Ryōō mask dating from the Kamakura period, which is classified as an Important Cultural Property.

(Photographs supplied by Himuro Jinja)

Kashihara Jingū was founded in 1890 on what is traditionally said to be the site of the court of Emperor Jinmu, the mythological founder of the Japanese state, according to accounts of Japan’s early history in the Kojiki (‘Record of Ancient Matters’) and Nihon shoki (‘The Chronicles of Japan’). Kume-mai is performed here, in the wide open space in front of the shrine with Mt. Unebi in the background, twice each year, at the Shōwasai of April 29 and the Niiname-sai of November 23. For 4 dancers, kume-mai is said to originate in songs and dances performed at a victory banquet by members of the ancient warrior clan Kume when Emperor Jinmu pacified the Yamato region. From the Heian period (9th to 12th centuries) onwards, it was performed at the Daijōsai (Great Thanksgiving Service), a more elaborate version of the Niiname-sai that was celebrated in years of imperial succession. In its present form, kume-mai is a 19th-century revival of a tradition that was lost in the medieval period. It is only rarely performed at the Imperial Palace, namely at the Daijōsai, so we are fortunate to have regular opportunities to see it at Kashihara Jingū.

(Photographs supplied by Kashihara Jingū)

Gagaku was performed at Sumiyoshi Taisha in ancient times, and the shrine preserves bugaku masks dating from the 12th century. The shrine’s own performance tradition, however, died out in the medieval period, and in later centuries performances were given by musicians and dancers from Shitennōji. In the precincts there is a stone stage donated to the shrine by Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615). It is counted as one of Japan’s three main gagaku stages, along with the stone stage at Shitennōji and the wooden stage extending seaward from the main shrine building at Itsukushima Jinja (Miyajima). The Unoha Shinji is celebrated on the 1st Day of the Rabbit (u-no-hi) in May, with bugaku dances on the stage. This celebrates the founding of the shrine, and offerings are made of flowering branches of the uzuki (deutzia). May is the month when the blossoms of the deutzia are at their best, and visitors can enjoy both bugaku dances and the flowers in the gardens of the shrine.

(Photographs supplied by Sumiyoshi Taisha)

Dainenbutsuji is the head temple of the Yūzū Nenbutsu sect, founded in the 12th century by Ryōnin Shōnin (1072–1132). For 5 days from May 1 each year, the Manbu-oneri is celebrated. It combines two events related to Pure Land belief: a procession depicting the arrival of a welcoming retinue of Amida and attendant bodhisattvas, and 10,000 readings of the Amida Sutra.

The term oneri refers to the procession of the bodhisattvas. This is based on the belief that Amida arrives with a retinue of bodhisattvas to accompany the spirit of a newly deceased person to the Pure Land. This is reenacted at the ceremony, as 25 figures with golden masks, holding ritual implements and instruments such as the mouthorgan shō and lute biwa, parade along a raised bridge, while the gagaku piece Bosatsu (‘Bodhisattvas’) is played. The nenbutsu (sung repetitions of the name of Amida Buddha), shōmyō (Buddhist chant) and kangen (instrumental music) are all performed by priests of the sect.

This ceremony can be said to be a musically rich, concrete realization of the belief of the sect that good karma is shared (yūzū) by all those who participate in the chanting of the nenbutsu.

(Photographs supplied by Dainenbutsuji)

Emperor Go-Daigo (1288–1339) is said to have spent about 2 years at Oki Kokubunji when he was exiled for his involvement in the Genkō incident of 1331. The temple and its parishioners preserve an older performing art called renge-e-mai (‘dances of the lotus blossom rite’), which dates back to the Heian period (9th to 12th centuries). Today the dances, which show clear traces of influence from ancient Buddhist performing arts, are performed on April 21, a date associated with Kōbō Daishi Kūkai, founder of the Shingon sect, who is traditionally believed to have ‘entered enlightenment’ on the 21st day of the 3rd lunar month. There was a fire at the temple in 2007 that destroyed its ancient masks, costumes, and implements, but they have been reconstructed, and the tradition is still being passed on. There are 7 dances in all: Nemuri-hotoke-no-mai (‘Dance of the sleepy Buddhas’), Shishi-no-mai (‘Lion dance’), Taiheiraku-no-mai (‘Dance of great peace’), Mugiyaki-no-mai (‘Barley-burning dance’), Ryūō-no-mai (‘Dance of the dragon king’), Sanjin-Kitoku-no-mai (‘Dance of Sanjin, the mountain god, and Kitoku’), and Hotoke-no-mai (‘Dance of the Buddhas’). While the dances retain elements of court dance and influence from the Asian mainland, there are gestures that derive from agricultural work, and other humorous elements, which suggest a strong connection with daily life on the island. It was classified as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan in 1977.

(Photographs supplied by Oki Kokubunji)

Itsukushima Jinja, the famous shrine of Miyajima, is known for its impressive architecture. Its bugaku tradition dates from the 12th century. When Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181) was appointed Aki no Kami (Governor of Aki province) in 1146, he began to sponsor performances here with the cooperation of musicians and dancers from the capital, Kyoto. Bugaku performances are given several times throughout the year on the stage that extends over the water on the seafront side of the main shrine building, with the famous red torii (shrine gate) standing in the shallows in the background. Two events worth a special visit are the Tōka-sai (April 15) and Kikka-sai (October 15), which celebrate the peach blossoms of spring and the chrysanthemums of autumn with performances of 11 dance pieces in the light of the setting sun. Another important event is the Chikyūsai of January 5, when the dance Batō is performed so early in the morning that it is given the alternative name Hinode no mai (‘sunrise dance’). The dance has been passed down from father to son in the Nosaka family of shrine priests since the 16th century. The mingling of the sounds of the gagaku instruments with the sounds of the water makes performances of gagaku at Itsukushima Jinja unique. This can also be appreciated at the Kangensai, held on the date that corresponds to the 17th day of the 6th lunar month, when kangen instrumental music is performed on a special boat (gozabune).

(Photographs by Shintani Kōichi)

Nikkō Tōshōgū enshrines Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. The present shrine dates from the 20th anniversary of his death, and historical records list the many bugaku dances that were performed to celebrate its completion. Up until that time, dancers were summoned from the capital (Kyoto) to perform in ceremonies, but a new tradition unique to Nikkō began from the year following the completion of the shrine. Based on transmission from Nara musicians, this tradition continued until the Meiji era. The present-day music department of Nikkō Tōshōgū, staffed by shrine priests, continues this tradition. At the regular spring and autumn festivals, parts of the kuniburi-no-utamai suite azuma-asobi are performed at the Otabisho (temporary dwelling of the godhead) after the conclusion of the procession of the portable shrine and its attendants in military costume. As a rule, Suruga-mai is performed in spring, and Motomego-mai in autumn. The costume of the dancers is unique to Tōshōgū, with a red outer robe in place of the more generally used white.

(Photograph supplied by Nikkō Tōshōgū)

Hikawa Jinja of Ōmiya, the Ichi-no-miya (‘first shrine’) of Musashino province, is the head of 200 shrines of the same name situated in the Tokyo-Saitama area. One of 16 shrines to which imperial messengers are sent when a festival is celebrated, Hikawa Jinja holds its regular festival on August 1, when azuma-asobi is performed by musicians dispatched from the imperial palace. The shrine priests, imperial messenger, attendants, dancers and musicians enter the precincts of the shrine, surrounded by festival floats and portable shrines from the local neighborhood. Unfortunately this solemn ceremony is no longer open to the public.

(Photograph supplied by Hikawa Jinja)

It is said that the performance of bugaku dance at Atsuta Jingū began in the early Heian period (9th century), and the shrine possesses valuable dance masks, including one for the dance Batō, dating from the Heian period (9th to 12th centuries). While there are more than 70 ceremonies celebrated annually at the shrine, visitors are free to view performances of gagaku on two occasions: the Tōka Ceremony of January 11, and the Bugaku Ceremony of May 1. The former is held early in the New Year to drive out evil spirits and pray for good fortune, and features saibara songs sung in ancient style and dances such as Uzue-no-mai and Ōgi-no-mai. The timbre of a twirled drum sounded while a sacred text is read is used to predict fortune for the coming year. The Bugaku Ceremony is one with ancient roots. A red-painted stage is set up in front of the shrine, on which dances such as Manzairaku, Engiraku, Kochō, and Batō are performed.

(Photographs supplied by Atsuta Jingū)

Ise Jingū has as many as 60 musicians and female dancers (bujo). Gagaku is performed throughout the year, at ceremonies and private offerings of kagura (‘god music’) sponsored by shrine worshippers. Opportunities for public viewing of gagaku performances, however, are limited. At the spring and autumn Kagura-sai (‘god music’ festivals), 4 or so bugaku dances are performed on a special stage, with red railings, erected in the garden of the Naiku (inner shrine). Kangen instrumental music and bugaku dance are performed after sunset on the evening of the harvest full moon. Another ceremony that can be viewed from the approach to the Naiku is the Ichigatsu Jūichinichi Mike (‘January 11 offering’), when azuma-asobi is performed at the Gojōden.

A strong characteristic of the gagaku of Ise Jingū is the great number of elegant dances performed by female dancers.

(Photographs supplied by the Jingū Administration Office)

Taku Seibyō is a Confucian temple founded in 1708 in Taku, Saga prefecture (Kyushu). When Confucian studies became popular during the Edo period (17th to 19th centuries), a biannual ceremony of offering known as Sekiten came to celebrated at places throughout Japan, and Japan’s gagaku was often used as its ceremonial music. At Taku Seibyō, a simplified ceremony called Sekisai has been celebrated every spring and autumn since its founding about 300 years ago. As gagaku is played, offerings of amazake, ginkgo nuts, mochi rice cakes and other foods are made by the celebrant (the city’s major) and other officials, all dressed in Chinese-style robes, to statues of Confucius and his disciples. The piece Etenraku is played as the deities are welcomed and offerings are made; the piece Batō sends the deities off at the end of the ceremony. The musicians, all city employees, wear the typical hitatare-style costume and eboshi headgear of kangen performance.

(Photographs supplied by Taku City)