Awa Odori Kaikan

Year-round home for Tokushima's famous Awa Odori dance

If you cannot make the August festival, this purpose-built hall at the foot of Mount Bizan is the next best thing. The fifth-floor museum explains the 400-year history of Awa Odori with costumes, instruments, and video of past performances. The first-floor stage hosts daily live shows by professional troupes, with an evening performance by one of the rotating amateur ren (dance groups) at 20:00.

Audience participation is built in — at the end of each show, dancers pull volunteers out of their seats to try the basic steps. The same building houses the Mount Bizan ropeway and a Tokushima-themed gift shop on the ground floor.

things to do museum
A story
Awa Odori traces its origins to 1586, when Lord Hachisuka Iemasa threw open the new Tokushima Castle and let the townspeople drink so much sake that they began to dance in the streets. The dance's signature line — "the dancers are fools, the watchers are fools, both are fools alike, so why not dance?" — has been sung ever since.