Kanda Matsuri
- Kanda Festival -

Together with the Sanno Festival of Akasaka and the Hachiman Festival of Fukagawa, the Kanda Festival was one of the three major, annual shrine festivals of Edo (pre-modern Tokyo).

This dance is extremely popular and there are many variations. In this performance, it takes the form of the dashing leader of the local "bloods" who is seen in the precincts of the Kanda shrine dressed for the festival. He is joined by a fully fledged geisha and younger apprentice. Being a genre dance, one that depicts popular manners and customs of the time, it has to be lively and colorful and the principal dancer must be the personification of that brash self-confidence and panache that was natural to the Edo-born dandy.

- From the pamphlet of "The Nishikawa School of Japanese Classical Dance Nihon Buyo in its San Francisco Premiere Performance" -

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