The dance, representing cultivating the fields in the face of the harsh natural environment and praying for a good harvest, has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan. The name Enburi comes from the name of a farm tool used to plow fields. The event is scheduled to be held every year from February 17th to 20th, in the middle of the coldest weather, making it an incredibly spirited time to awaken spring. The dancer wears a eboshi hat shaped like a horse’s head, and dances magnificently, swinging his head from side to side. This can also be seen in hip-hop dance, which includes snake choreography.
Teams are formed in each region and the tunes and movements are passed down. There are two types of Enburi: the slow and graceful “Naga-enburi” and the fast and heroic “Dosai-enburi.” In the former, one dancer wears an eboshi hat with a peony flower and other dancers surround him performing different dances, while in the latter, all dancers wear eboshi hats with five-colored tassels and perform the same dance. The dance movements represent the entire process of rice farming, from sowing seeds in the seedbed, to plowing the field with a horse, planting the rice, and finally harvesting. Furthermore, children (and occasionally the elderly) perform blessing performance, which is positioned as something to enjoy during breaks from farm work. The performance includes dancing with hoops that have coins attached to them, dancing with pine branches, and sea bream fishing. It seems that spectators sometimes attach gift money to the end of fishing hooks.
<Dosai-Enburi by Nukatsuka team>
<Naga-Enburi by Nakaibayashi team>
The teams are invited to perform Enburi at various stores and can be seen all over town during the festival. The Tourist Association has also created a separate event program and arranged a public stage. The highlight of this program is the “Garden Enburi” which takes place in the courtyard of Kōjōkaku, a mansion of a former financial clique family in Hachinohe that is now registered as tangible cultural property, located in the center of Hachinohe. You can watch the evening Enburi while sipping on sweet half sake and rice cracker soup in a tatami room. Reserved seats are sold at the convenience store Lawson from one month in advance, so if you want to watch the show, you should definitely reserve a seat in the first row. The competition for the first row seats is fierce. If you’re in the first row luckily, you can set up a video tripod. Heat packs are distributed to all audience and there is a bonfire, but in any case, you’ll be watching outside in the cold, so you’ll need to wear clothes to protect yourself from the extreme cold.
The second recommendation is the “Brewery Storehouse Enburi” that Hachinohe Shuzo(Brewery) accepts only during this season as a set with a tour of the brewery. Online reservations are required, but there is less competition than for the Garden Enburi. Here, in a warm room, you can enjoy some excellent sake while watching the dancers perform right in front of you, almost touching them, making it the perfect opportunity to see their intricate movements. During this period, several tours are scheduled, so you can check out both Naka-enburi and Dosai-enburi. It seems that the brewers at this brewery are also participating in one of the groups. To get to Hachinohe Shuzo( Brewery), you’ll need to take the JR Hachinohe Line from Hachinohe Station to Mutsuminato Station, or take a bus from downtown Hachinohe, but it’s quite close.
<Brewery storehouse Enburi(Dosai) by Hashikami-Toriyabe team>
Sake brewing is also at its peak at this time of year, so we recommend visiting the two major sake breweries: Hachinohe Shuzo, where you can enjoy the Brewery storehouse Enburi performance, and Hachinohe Shurui, located in the city center and with a modern shop building. Buying sake is a bulky process, but Hachinohe Shurui is surprisingly good at shipping sake with other manufacturers at a low price. I bought two 1.8L bottles at Hachinohe Shurui and had them delivered.
<Hachinohe Shuzo>
<Hachinohe Shurui>
Detour
Hachinohe Shuzo is located near JR Mutsuminato Station. It is close to the Tatehana Wharf where the huge and chaotic morning market is held, but of course the market is not open in the middle of winter (though it does have a special market during the New Year). However, in front of the station, there is a fish and vegetable market in a building that is open from morning until noon, and everything is very cheap. Sashimi(sliced raw fish) is also packaged in individual portions, so you can choose what you like, and if you order additional rice and miso soup at a table in the back, you can have a decent meal.
Also nearby is Minato Shokudo(dining room), a popular restaurant on social media, where you can try their seasoned flounder rice bowl, although you may have to wait in line (in fact, if you write your name in a notebook at the reception desk, they will call you on your mobile phone when it is your turn). Apparently, in good seasons, you may have to wait 2-3 hours, but this was my fourth visit to Hachinohe and the first time I tried it, it was mid-winter, so I only had to wait an hour. Most people arrive on the JR Hachinohe Line and wait in line, and when you board the two-car train at Hachinohe Station, you have to get in directly behind the driver’s seat in the front car because Mutsuminato Station is an unmanned station and the driver of the one-man train also checks the tickets of passengers getting off from inside the train. I didn’t notice it at first, and assumed that all the doors would open if I pressed the button beside doors when I got to the station, but I was surprised when everyone moved to the front. Only one door in the front car opened because of the ticket gate. I later found out that all of these people were heading to Minato Shokudo! After getting off at the unmanned station, I made a furious dash and overtook about 10 people, but the enemy came in a group of several people, and one of the faster runners got in line first, and the person I had overtaken got in front of the line.
There was nothing to do during the hour-long wait, so I decided to take a walk to the free observation tower (Grette Tower Minato) on the cape beyond Tatehana Wharf and stared blankly at Hachinohe Port, which turned out to be quite enjoyable. To the east we could see Kabushima island, where black-tailed gulls had not yet arrived because it was not yet spring, and to the west we could see the majestic snow-capped Mount Hakkoda, and to the south we could see downtown Hachinohe and the forest of Chojayama Sinra Shrine, which is the venue for the polo matches at the summer Sansha Festival, as if they were right in front of us, and the hour passed by in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, the long-awaited seasoned flounder rice bowl was as delicious as SNS had said. For an additional 200 yen, you can have the miso soup turned into Hachinohe’s specialty rice cracker soup, but there’s no rice cracker soup with a more delicious broth than this one, so be sure to order it. After that, we once again made a mad dash to Brewery storehouse Enburi, for which we had a reservation starting at 2 p.m.
