Super Yosakoi 2011

The final weekend of August is a good time for dancing in the streets, with major festivals occurring in Koenji and Harajuku (though not, alas, Asakusa – this year's samba carnival has been cancelled). The original yosakoi dance started life in Kochi in 1954, where it was intended to help revitalise the struggling post-war economy, and Tokyo's own Super Yosakoi festival has been going for just over a decade now. The event sees nearly a hundred teams of brightly attired dancers try to outdo each other as they strut their stuff to the rhythm of the naruko, a type of clapper that the people of Kochi originally used to scare birds away from their fields. This year's event will be held in aid of tsunami relief.