Takayama matsuri

   A festival performed at two venues in Takayama-shi, Gifu. The spring festival (a sanno matsuri) takes place at the the Hie jinja, April 14-15th, and the autumn festival on October 9-10th at the Sakuragaoka Hachiman-gu. Gorgeous three-tiered floats (yatai) topped with a kind of miniature shrine building, some made in the genroku style of the early eighteenth century and some carrying clockwork marionettes, form a procession. In the spring festival there are twelve floats and in the autumn eleven, all richly decorated with lacquer work, metal and patterned cloth and built in such a way that they shake and sway as they are pulled along. The float called hoteidai features a model of Hotei with two children who swing down on a trapeze and land on his shoulder. Other floats sport Chinese silk prints or carved Chinese lions. A shishi-mai and a special form of folk music with gongs, known as tokeigaku, are performed.