Vietnam's Nakama Yosakoi dance team is the only team from abroad selected to perform at the Harajuku Super Yosakoi festival.
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| The Super Yosakoi Festival in Tokyo was born in 2001. |
On August 26, Harajuku Super Yosakoi Festival, also known as "Harajuku Omotesando Genki Matsuri Super Yosakoi Festival" opened at Yoyogi Park, Tokyo. This is one of the largest annual festivals in Tokyo, resumed after a 8-year hiatus due to the Covid-2 pandemic.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Japan, the Nakama Yosakoi dance team of Vietnam is the only team from abroad selected to perform at this festival.
Tokyo's Super Yosakoi Festival was born in 2001, in honor of Kochi Prefecture's traditional Yosakoi festival, timed to coincide with a Meiji Shrine festival on the last weekend of August. The Harajuku Omotesando Keyaki Association organized in special collaboration with Meiji Shrine to create an event that deeply engages the local community.
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| A large number of Japanese people enjoyed the performance of team Nakama Yosakoi. |
The Super Yosakoi Festival has grown in popularity over the years and is now held as one of the largest Yosakoi events in Japan.
The focal point of the festival is the Yosakoi Naruko dance, a choreography that teams are free to choreograph as long as it incorporates the original song "Yosakoi Naruko Dancing" by Eisaku Takemasa. The dance is full of energy, combining traditional Japanese dance movements and modern music, with the use of Naruko – a wooden object with a handle that can be hit or shaken to make a sound. These Naruko are an irreplaceable part of Yosakoi and are used to accentuate the rhythm of the dance.
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| There were 24 Nakama Yosakoi team members participating in the 2023 Super Yosakoi Festival in Tokyo. |
Yosakoi performance costumes have no design or color regulations, so teams are often creatively free to design unique costumes that have their own identity and suit the Yosakoi dance.
Nakama Yosakoi is a dance team under the auspices of the Information Center of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Vietnam Union of UNESCO Associations, born with the aim of creating a playground for those passionate about Japanese dance Yosakoi in Vietnam.
Nakama Yosakoi attended the 15th Harajuku Omotesandou Super Yosakoi Genki Matsuri Festival in 2015 and won the “Outstanding New Dance Team” award.
Participating in the 2023 Super Yosakoi Festival in Tokyo, the Nakama Yosakoi team, with 24 members, performed a dance inspired by the Vietnamese fairy tale “The peacock and the crow”. Ta Ngoc Huyen, a member of the dance team, shared: “Coming to this festival in Tokyo, we are very happy to have combined a Vietnamese fairy tale with traditional Japanese dance and introduce this dance right in the country that gave birth to Yosakoi.”
A large number of Japanese people enjoyed the performance of team Nakama Yosakoi, giving applause for the team's enthusiastic and energetic performance.
According to the plan, in 2 days from August 26 to 27, Yosakoi dance teams will perform in turn at venues including the avenue in front of NHK Television, the stage at Yoyogi Park, and a special stage set up in Hanoi. entrance to Meiji Shrine and Omotesando Fashion Avenue. The organizers predict that the festival will attract nearly 8 million visitors to enjoy the performance of more than 1 Yosakoi dance teams with more than 100 dancers.
