Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri

The Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri has been held every year since the twelfth century, making it one of the longest unbroken festival traditions in Japan. It belongs to the Wakamiya Shrine within Kasuga Taisha, the great vermilion shrine among the deer of Nara Park, and its purpose is to welcome the young deity down to a temporary shrine, the Otabisho, and to entertain him for a day and a night with the whole repertoire of Japan's classical performing arts.

The festival runs from 15 to 18 December, but the 17th is the day that matters. The Owatari-shiki, a procession of around a thousand people in the costumes of a millennium of Japanese history, from Heian courtiers to Edo-period samurai, sets out from the Prefectural Office at 12:00 and makes its way along Sanjo-dori to the Otabisho in the park. There, as darkness falls, the sacred performances begin by firelight: kagura, bugaku court dances, dengaku, sarugaku and other forms that survive in this unbroken line almost nowhere else, continuing until about 22:30, when the deity is escorted back to his shrine in total darkness and silence.

Nara is under an hour from Kyoto or Osaka by train, and the procession route and the park are walkable from Kintetsu-Nara Station. Standing room along Sanjo-dori is free, and the performances at the Otabisho can be watched from the grass at no charge, though December nights in Nara are cold and long. Do not expect a fair or fireworks; this is a scholarly, solemn festival whose appeal lies in seeing the oldest arts of Japan performed as they were meant to be, for a god rather than an audience.