More glimpses of unfamiliar Japan

  A few weeks ago I posted on a small altar to Omoto in a neighbouring village and asked if anyone would be interested in seeing the shamani...

Shamanic dance in Japan From 6:30p.m. yesterday evening until 5:30a.m. this morning I visited the Omoto kagura Matsuri in the village of En...

Our next matsuri was in Eno, a small village on the Yato River. This was our first time to matsuri here. It's a fairly new shrine, estab...

One of the things that attracts me to Iwami kagura is the sheer dedication and professionalism of the dancers, though in fact there are no p...

This short video is from my favorite of all the Omoto Kagura dances. The tengai is the canopy above a kagura performance space. The kami des...

It is believed that the root of Japanese religion, AND the root of Japanese performing arts lie in shamanic trance. Shamanic kagura was once...

This wonderfully weathered torii stands in front of the Omoto Shrine in Yato. It's a small settlement on the banks of the Yato River , n...