Dancers parade during the Fussa Tanabata Festival near Yokota Air Base, Japan, Aug. 4, 2017. (Aaron Kidd/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Fussa, a Japanese city that neighbors this airlift hub in western Tokyo, is bringing back its popular Tanabata festival in full for the first time in five years.
The festivities, which will include parades of traditional folk dancers for the first time since the pandemic, begin at 3:30 p.m. Friday and conclude Sunday on the main shopping street that runs west of Fussa Station.
The festival, which began in 1951 as a summer event to promote the shopping street, includes three parades, an official with the Fussa city sales promotion section told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday.
The Yokota Tanabata Dancers, a group of active-duty service members and spouses, plan to take their place again at the event.
“I’m excited,” Jessica Stephens, a member of the group since 2010 and the spouse of Master Sgt. Jeffrey Stevens, said via Facebook Messenger on Thursday.
Stephens danced at many festivals with the group until her family relocated to Cannon Air Force Base, N.M. They returned in 2020 for a second tour in Japan.
“I have been very fortunate to be a part of this group for almost a decade, so it’s nostalgic for me to dance, seeing the crowds’ smiling faces, smelling the food and passing by all the shops that have been decorating the streets of Fussa for many years,” she said.
Also known as star festivals, Tanabata celebrates the only day of the year when two lovers, the stars Altair and Vega, can meet.
Fussa's mascot, Take, made of balloons, watches over the city's Tanabata Festival, July 8, 2024. (Aaron Kidd/Stars and Stripes)
The block-party atmosphere of the full event in Fussa was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, although a scaled-down version last year attracted about 530,000 visitors, more than the average 400,000 visitors, the city official said.
The three parades are the hallmark of Fussa’s Tanabata Festival. The mikoshi and float parade is scheduled from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. A mikoshi is a palanquin, or enclosed litter carried with poles, that in Shinto beliefs is used to carry a deity from a main shrine to a temporary shrine during a festival.
The folk dancing parade follows immediately afterward and lasts until 8:40 p.m. Any city resident or worker at a company in Fussa may participate in that parade with prior registration, the city official said.
The hoshi-no parade, or Star Parade, features illuminated floats and is scheduled from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Many government officials speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.
The Yokota Tanabata Dancers practice 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursdays from March to November at the Taiyo Community Center, Stephens said. Ayako Hiruma is the instructor.
“Sensei Ayako is a wonderful teacher,” Stephens said. “She has a lot of heart for dance.”
Parade dancing is repetitive movement, Stephens said.
“It is easy to pick up and if you mess up,” she said. “Honestly no one cares; we just keep a smile on our faces and the crowds are extremely forgiving.”
