| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1996: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This research project was to analyze the process in which many festival events and folk performing arts are transformed, transplanted or invented, and aquire meanings, and generate people's identity in local context in modern Japan. First, the investigator redefined the idea of folklorism, developed by the German Volkskunde in early 1960s, and, secondly, tried to apply it to the selected festival events and folk performing arts. Those events and arts are the Fukue Festival in Fukue City, Goto islands, Nagasaki Prefecture, the Nio Dragon Festival in Nio Cho in Kagawa Prefecture, Shikoku Island, the local drum troupes in Hiroshima and Kagawa Prefectures, the local exposition held in Gifu Prefecture in 1988, and the Shirotori Bon Dance in Shirotori Cho, Gifu Prefecture. The investigator conducted the field research for each of those festival events and folk performing arts. The resuls are as follows. 1. After transplanting the Aomori Nebuta lantem float into the Fukue Festival scene as main program, the festival captured more popularity than before. 2. The Nio Dragon was originally a small straw dragon made by peasant people praying it for stopping the drought, and now it plays a principal role in the festival event organized by the local town office. 3. The local drum troupes are still in vogue in all parts of Japan. This boom is a process of inventing tradition among rural people through the folk performing arts. 4. The Local Exposition in Gifu was an opportunity when many festivals and performing arts were revaluated, reorganized and reproduced as symbols representing local idylic value. 5. The Shirotori Bon Dance was once an active form of recreation among the folk. Today, it is gradually becoming a tourism resource of local area.
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