Entertainment at Japanese festivals: monkey shows

Over the last year I have been showcasing some of the festival food available at Japanese festivals. But what about entertainment? Well, there is that too! It ranges greatly from festival to festival and some forms of entertainment are more common than others. Such as, live performances either music or dance, or both. But sometimes you get to see some more distinctive entertainment, such as monkey shows.

Monkey shows are called sarumawashi 猿回し in Japanese. Saru 猿 is the Japanese for monkey and mawashi 回し means to turn in English. Check out Tonetoedo's post about the evolution of sarumawashi in Japan. There was a time when there were dedicated facilities for monkey shows, known as Monkey Theaters. But nowadays street performing monkeys seem to be the most common.

The first time I saw a sarumawashi performance was at a theme park. And some theme parks still offer this form of entertainment. However, I think it has become less common. Moreover, the number of monkey theaters has dwindled greatly in the last twenty years. I believe there is still one at Kawaguchiko, but the one in my prefecture has long still closed. It was in Nagatoro and you can still see the old building, but they haven't opened their doors in years as far as I am aware. More is the shame.

However, thankfully you can still see monkey shows at some festivals from time to time. For example, in my own prefecture of Saitama, each year the Hidaka Cherry Blossom Festival has a sarumawashi show and last year I caught one at a festival in Okegawa, pictured. I chose this photo because this monkey had a cheeky personality. He had been facing toward me, looking at me directly and when I lifted my camera to my face he turned his back on me! 

Have you seen a monkey show in Japan?