Akita’s Kanto Matsuri

The second stop of my summer matsuri vacation was the city of Akita, known for its delicious rice, beautiful women, and the Akita Inu dog breed. (Hachiko, the legendary canine who waited for its dead master at Shibuya train station for a decade, was an Akita Inu.)

Akita’s Kanto Matsuri （竿灯まつり）, which draws 1.3 million visitors annually, involves adult men balancing huge bamboo frames – called kanto – through various means during an evening parade. The most basic move is balancing the pole on the palm, but the more skillful performers would try doing so on their shoulders, their heads, or even their hips.

Historical records show that the Kanto festival started at least 250 years ago, its main purpose to pray for a good rice harvest. The practice of balancing the kanto was said to have started as a means to stave off the lethargy caused by the summer heat.

One of the many groups at the Kanto festival. The biggest kanto are 12m high and weigh 50kg, with about 46 paper lanterns attached.

Shooting this festival was a major challenge for me. Firstly, framing was difficult because the performers are constantly on the move. Secondly, it’s difficult to capture the right background because everyone else is also moving. Thirdly, as the people with the kanto do their balancing act, their team members move around them, often preventing me from getting a clear shot. Lastly, there generally isn’t much variation – the moves don’t differ that much after a while…

It didn’t help that we started on the wrong footing. Joanne and I arrived at Akita Station in the late afternoon – the journey from Aomori is much longer than expected, really – and took over an hour to find lockers for our luggage. (Just like Aomori, we couldn’t find any accommodation for Akita city, and booked a hotel in a town called Yokote, over an hour away by train.)

And Akita was baking hot. About 35 degrees Celsius, perhaps? Actually, I’d expected that temperature everywhere I went for this trip, but Tokyo and Aomori were both cooler than expected. (Tokyo was drizzling every day we were there) Definitely a mood dampener.

Lastly, I didn’t bring the right lens on the first night. Completely flustered after taking so long to find a locker, I decided to just leave the 24mm behind. Bad, bad move, because as I would realise later that evening, 35mm isn’t wide enough for the Kanto action.

So much as I would have liked to rest in Yokote the following day, I decided to make the long journey back to Akita on my own to make up for the missed opportunities on the first evening, while Joanne stayed behind in Yokote and enjoyed a spa treatment.

As with the rest of the festival pictures during this trip, all were taken on the Nikon F6 with either the 24mm f1.4 or the AIS 35mm f1.4, on Kodak Portra 800.

Performers from Akita Broadcasting packing up after a late afternoon performance close to the main venue.

I’m not sure why there was a Hawaiian dance segment…

Balancing on the hip!

The kanto are not just for adults, however. There are also miniature ones, measuring 5m high and weighing 5kg, that are made for performers of primary school age. And these kids try to outdo each other by trying more difficult tricks like balancing on the head. (often with disastrous results)

As the night wears on, the more skilful groups will start lengthening their Kanto by adding extensions, such as this one here. Some performers will also push themselves to the limit, for example by doing their gravity-defying act while walking on Japanese clogs and waving fans.

Supporting cast #1

Supporting cast #2

The parade lasts exactly an hour, and a total of 250 kanto are involved every night.

One interesting feature of the festival is that visitors have one hour to interact with the kanto performers and take photographs with the kanto after the parade. Here, a little girl tries her hand at the drums.

Performers cheering for the cameraman, whom I think is from a local broadcaster.

Well what’s a matsuri without the food? Food stalls set up close to the parade venue.

Despite the challenges faced in shooting this festival, I think I still had a fair bit of fun. I’m unlikely to come back again though! As mentioned, there is little variation in the performances. but hey, that’s not necessarily a bad thing since there are so many other places in Japan I would like to visit. ;)