1300 Years of Ritual Dances in the Heart of the Japanese Mountains

It all started with a dream in which the voice of her late father encouraged her to embark on a pilgrimage. This voyage led Yukari Chikura to north-east Japan, on the trail of memory and heritage. In the book Zaido (2020), the photographer reveals a mystical world that came to be 1300 years ago.

After studying music and then working as a coder, the artist, a Tokyo native, now expresses herself with a camera in hand. She collaborates with various publications, including The New York Times.

Dances and purification

On the second day of every new year, the inhabitants of different villages come together to perform seven ritual dances: gongen-mai, koma-mai, uhen-mai, tori-mai, godaison-mai, kosho-mai, and dengaku-mai, as an article from Lens Culture explains. These residents participate in the dances in honour of the gods to purify themselves and attract good fortune—precise details are provided in a text accompanying the book. Where Aomori, Iwate, and Akita prefectures meet, four communities—Ohsato, Azukizawa, Nagamine, and Taninai—organise these different rituals that begin before dawn, leading the public into the mountains, into landscapes with surreal figures.

Yukari Chikura’s photographs illustrate the diverse nature of the participants, dressed in traditional costumes and masks, disappearing into the mist and snow, into the darkness, adding a mystical dimension to the environment. The artist constructs her account as she wanders, and the series also includes photographs that solely depict the snowy landscape and its local fauna.

Yukari Chikura’s work is part of the collections at the Griffin Photography Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. Other photographic series by the artist can be viewed on her website.

Zaido (2020), a series of photographs by Yukari Chikura, is published by Steidl.