Many rural communities in Okinawa hold annual harvest festival at the sacred area of each village, and what amazes me is the fact that the dancers are not professionals but villagers themselves in most cases. Those festivals are, traditionally, far and foremost, dedicated for gods who bring many blessings on the farm lands, a tradition that resembles Thanks Giving Day in its basic form of appreciation for good harvest. Thus, the element of entertainment is secondary, although the religious aspects of the cultural practice have been receding at an increasing speed--an alarming speed to the eyes of many older generations--and looked at more and more as a form of entertainment. Yet, we don'e need to consider that emphasizing recreational aspects of traditional activities are ruinous to the island culture. I think you can grasp my idea if you take Christmas as an example.
"Akemio Festa 2011," for that matter, can be categorized as a form of entertainment. Meio University, a local college, has been considering revitalizing the city hand-in-hand with various local groups and businesses, including each village community of the city. A team of students (many of them are studying tourism at the university) have long thinking about revitalization of Nago City and tourism promotion through the locally practiced performing art. They did extensive research and field works, visiting each community leader and explaining the concept of their enterprise one by one, gradually developing the mutual understanding with many of the community leaders, musicians and dancers. Yet, creating enough budget was the last and largest obstacle for them to run the project.
For the meantime, Okinawa Prefecture was preparing to allocate some budget for projects that will promote Okinawa's tourism through cultural activities. A number of corporations sought competing bids and among the several corporations were the university team.
With the financial backup from the prefecture government, the university team was ready to finalize all the program details and their dream came true in the form of Akemio Festa.
Akemio is an Okinawan word that describes the moment in which a cove or a large body of water starts to gain radiance as the water awaits a break of the day. Nago City's traditional name is a city of Akemio, thus the festival was name as such.
The first program was held last week. Here, I put up the list of remaining programs throughout this months.
Click here to see the direction toNago City Public Market from Naha Airport shown on Google Map.
March 12th (Sat.) 5PM-7PM, performers from Awa Community.
March 19th (Sat.) 5PM-7PM, performers from Miyazato Community.
March 20th (Sun.) 5PM-7PM, performers from Yabu Community.
March 21st (Mon.) 5PM-7PM, performers from Agarie Community.
March 27th (Sun.) 5PM-7PM, performers from Gusuku Community.
Admission is free.
Free parking space is available at Nago Fishery Port.
To get to the public market building from the port, use a pedestrian overpass in front of the port gate to get across National Highway 58 (Route 58). Continue walking toward the downtown area (opposite direction from the port), pass a 5-story yellow building with a large green artificial lizard cringing on the wall facing the port, till you get to Nago Cross Section. (Be careful not to mistake it with Gusuku Cross Section.) At Nago Cross Section, you'll see two large yellow signs of karaoke place, one of which has a cartoon cat drawn on it. The market building is on the other side of the karaoke place. You may be hearing music coming from the market area.
Click here to see the direction of Nago Fishery Port (Google Map)
Click here to see the direction from the port to the market building (Google Map)
The first day of Akemio Festa last week.
Members from a karate school in Umusa community
demonstrated some types of the martial art,
like this stick fighting.
