Kanto

The Kanto Matsuri runs 3 to 6 August every year without exception, and it is one of the three great festivals of the Tohoku region. Its origin is a summer purification rite — driving off the drowsiness and evil spirits that come with the humid nights before the harvest — and the lantern arrays are shaped deliberately like rice ears heavy with grain.

The physics of it

A full-size owaka pole stands about twelve metres and weighs around fifty kilograms with its forty-six lanterns lit. The bearer raises it, then transfers it through a sequence of balance points — palm, forehead, shoulder, hip, lower back — with no hands on it at all in the held positions.

When the wind moves, the bearer moves. Poles bend, sway, and sometimes go over into the crowd, and the crowd expects it. Extra bamboo sections are added mid-performance to make the pole taller and harder while it is already balanced.

The lanterns hold real candles. When a pole comes down, it comes down burning, and the teams simply relight and start again.

What you actually do as a spectator

The main event runs in the evening along a closed section of Kanto-odori. Paid grandstand seats sell out well in advance; standing at the roadside is free and closer, and the poles pass within a few metres.

Afterwards there is a period called furemai when the barriers come down, the teams stay on the street, and anyone may try to lift a pole. Foreign visitors are actively encouraged. You will not balance it. Lifting it at all is the achievement.

If your call is not in August

The Neburi Nagashi-kan — the Kanto Festival Center — holds full poles year round and stages one live performance at 13:30 on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from April to the end of October. On weekdays you can still try a pole in the hall.

They let you try. Being handed a fifty-kilogram bamboo pole indoors, and failing to hold it, is a more useful education than watching a video of someone succeeding.