AOMORI--With an uncertain future, the Tohoku Rokkon Festival, an annual event to bolster efforts to rebuild the 2011 disaster-stricken Tohoku region, opened here on June 25 with about 170,000 spectators attending.
In the parade through the streets of the city, “nebuta” lantern floats, the symbol of Aomori Prefecture’s renowned Nebuta Festival in August, were pulled along while some marchers hoisted “kanto” bamboo poles filled with lanterns, as seen in the Akita Kanto Festival in August.
Among the other representatives in the 1,300-member parade were those from the Morioka Sansa Odori dance in Iwate Prefecture, the Yamagata Hanagasa Festival in Yamagata Prefecture, the Sendai Tanabata Festival in Miyagi Prefecture and the Fukushima Waraji Festival.
The Tohoku Rokkon Festival, a two-day event, was held for the first time in the summer of 2011 after the Tohoku region, which is composed of the prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Yamagata and Akita in northeastern Japan, was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that year.
Sendai hosted the first event, and Aomori is the last of the six prefectures to do so this year.
The future of the integrated festival has yet to be decided, according to the organizing committee.
“We have not reached a decision over whether we will continue it, but we are ready to take advantage of the network we have built in the past events,” an official said.