Festival theme week, part 1

I have so many nice pictures from last weeks festival that I decided to use at least some of them for a special theme week about this festival. (Although it's not exactly in Kitakami, but in the small neighbourtown Esashi, 10 km south. But Kitakami has a very similar festival in late summer.).

This festival, called jinku-matsuri (jinku means lively song, lively dance), is held during two days in early may, and probably every single inhabitant of the town is participating. The main event is a procession of dozens of groups (school, companies, banks, association and clubs, etc) including several thousand people parading through the city. The members of all groups are dressed in the same costume, and all those people perform the same dance to always the same song, the local festival anthem.

Mayor waiting for the procession to start. He is leading the group of dancers of the municipality.

A group of elderly ladies. Usually, these groups have the best dancers.

A group of bank clerks.

Housewifes dedicated to traffic safety.

Tomorrow, I'll show you the procession's special events.

For the sound of the festival, click here, here or here (I uploaded some short videos).