Nagasaki Kunchi Festival

The Nagasaki Kunchi Festival is arguably Japan's most famous festival. It is an autumn festival held at Suwa Shrine which has a history of 370 years. Today, this festival is held every year for three days starting on October 7th in accordance. The colorful (and noisy) festival attracts thousands of visitors nationally and internationally with the solar calendar, drawing large numbers of tourists from both inside and outside Nagasaki Prefecture.
There are 11 neighborhoods that are separated into 7 "dance groups", which totals to 77 different performances complete with different dances and floats for each group. (See below for the 7 different neighborhoods.)
The climax of the festival is a dance of a dragon chasing a golden ball. Since this is a Chinese heavily influenced part, the dancers have on Chinese garb and Chinese music plays.
The greatest highlight is the Hono-Odori in which the towns in charge, called Odori-cho, take turns every year to perform dances. Each Odori-cho takes charge once every 7 years. The Hono-Odori is also performed in the square in front of the City Public Hall, at the sacred resting-place for gods during the festival parade and at the Yasaka Shrine.
Moreover, the attractions prepared by the Odori-cho include dazzling floats shaped like river barges or Chinese boats on wheels. When the decorations, some over 100 kg and serving as placards of the town, arrive at the head of the parade, the spectators lining the streets call out "Come quickly, we're waiting!," or "Turn around in a big circle!"

Background History

The Kunchi Festival is one of Japan's most famous festival. The main event of the festival is the Noh drama (check out the link below for more info on Noh). This ritual changed in 1857, however, when a fire hit. The festival was re-vamped and now included competitions of people trying to impress with their different performances

The Kunchi Festival reflects the curious history of Nagasaki as the colorful procession has strong Chinese and Dutch overtones from the days when Nagasaki was the only Japanese port open to foreign trade (1603-1868). It also has its roots in the Japanese government's fierce attempts to stamp out Christianity here in 1634. High spots are the Chinese dragon chasing a golden ball, and the parading of an enormous wooden boat and umbrella. The dance troupes are provided by different wards of the city each year and you would need to come for seven years to see the full range