Vol. 54: Awa Dance Festival in Tokushima Unites International & Local Otsuka Staff

Read the full story with photos at:

https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2014/0812_01.html

As part of Obon Festival held on August 12 – 15, each year Japan’s largest Awa Dance Festival is held in Tokushima, where Otsuka was founded. The 100-strong Otsuka Ren has Otsuka Pharmaceutical employees from Japan and overseas and from all ranks.

New hires and those who have been with the company for decades all join together and practice for months in various locations before coming together to perform as one.

Each year, Awa Dance instructors come up with different formations for the dancers to perform.

The 400-year old traditional Awa Dance performance brings well over 1.23 million spectators from all over Japan and overseas each year to the tiny Tokushima town of 700,000 population.

Otsuka Ren dancers are accompanied by its own musicians (who are also Otsuka employees), playing Japanese bells, flutes, shamisens, and taiko drums as they dance in front of thousands of spectators.