【Miyazaki Prefecture Gokase Towns Traditional Performing Arts】Usu Drum Dance

The Usu Drum Dance, which is danced during the Great Autumn Festival of Gion Shrine, was Dedication on the 9th day of the 9th month of the lunar calendar in ancient times, so it is also called "Kunchi Odori" and has been danced for more than 400 years. It is said that it began when the Heike clan, who had been driven out of Kyoto and continued to wander in exile, danced in the village of Kuraoka on their way to the unexplored mountain village of Shiiba, while surviving the glamorous capital of Kyoto.

The dance, which shows a dignified demeanor in elegance, remembers the hearts of the people of the capital and is Dedication to the annual autumn festival of Gion Shrine every year.

< legendary thing>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first year of Bunji (1185), at the end of the Minamoto War, the remnants of the Taira family, who were defeated in the battle of Dannoura, escaped the pursuit of the Minamoto clan and continued to flee to the hinterland, reaching the village of Kuraoka, and on the way to Mt. Shiiba, they left the weak, women and children in the mountains near Kuraokanami due to the bad road in the deep mountains.

In the second year of Genkyu, the Kamakura shogunate did not relent in its pursuit of the remnants of the Heike family, and ordered Nasu Daihachiro Munehisa to hunt down the clan that had fled to the Kyushu Mountains.

It is said that Nasu Daihachiro's party, which entered the village of Kuraoka to go to Shiiba after receiving the order, realized that the Heike villagers who remained in Kuraoka had no will to fight, and held a dance of the Kuretsu Doshu to comfort them on the long journey, abandon the luxury of the winners, and take pity on the losers.
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It is said that the dance at the time described above became the basis of Kuraoka's Usu Drum Dance, and it remains in its current form after rising and falling with the times and moving several times.

Dancing to the Drums and Hooks shows a dignified demeanor in elegance.

In recent years, the Gion Shrine Usu Drum Dance Preservation Society has inherited the dance with the cooperation of children and Ujiko (shrine parishioners) of Gokase Nature School.

Usu Drum Dance Date... October 9 of each year