Let's Dance!

The Asakusa area of Tokyo is normally associated with “traditional” Japan. It was the Ginza before Ginza came up. It was the Edo-era nightlife district. It’s still strongly associated with festivals like the Sanja Matsuri (one of the three largest festivals in Japan). Yet, for some reason, for the last 30 years it has been home to the Asakusa Samba Festival.

Each August, samba teams – some led by Brazilian, but mainly comprised of Japanese dancers – take over two large streets to parade their floats, dancers and corporate sponsors for the throngs who crowd onto the small sidewalks. (The throngs, incidentally, are made up primarily of men in their late 40’s or older with long telephoto lens-equipped cameras.)

Participating teams obviously spend a great deal of time on the design and construction of their floats and costumes. Some are obviously beholden to (or perhaps employed by) corporate sponsors such as Asahi Beer (a major sponsor of anything that happens in Asakusa given their head office sits across the river) and Pocari Sweat.

Other teams’ concepts were harder to guess the relationship to anything samba/Brazilian. For instance, the Cleopatra dancers (though they must be given credit for sticking close to the theme and being the only team to have “slaves” pushing their float rather than using a truck).

And, this one, which the idle monkey trainer cannot even fathom a guess as to its meaning.

The Asakusa Samba Festival is held the last weekend of August.
(And, now, because they would eventually be requested by the readership, here are a couple more shots.)