murmurTakengei Bamboo Acrobatics (Wakamiya Inari Shrine)
Nagasaki City · Wakamiya Inari Shrine
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Nagasaki Prefecture Tourism Association (Nagasaki Tabinet) · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates not confirmed
- 2026
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- 2027
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- Usual timing
- Usually mid October
- How the date is set
- Every year, October 14 – October 15 Part of the autumn festival of Wakamiya Inari Shrine
- Venue
- Wakamiya Inari Shrine
- City
- Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
About
At the autumn festival of Wakamiya Inari Shrine in the Irabayashi district of Nagasaki, acrobats perform high up on bamboo poles. Said to come from a Chinese Rakan dance, Takengei shows the shrine's fox messengers, a male and a female, delighting in the deity's blessings and playing in the bamboo grove behind the shrine. To the music of flute, small drums and shamisen, two young men dressed in white and wearing fox masks perform on top of two green bamboo poles more than 10 meters tall. Elementary school children open as charming fox cubs, then come bolder feats like handstands and fox leaps. The loudest cheers come when the female fox throws lucky rice cakes and the male fox sends a chicken flying. Passed down since the Edo period, it is a nationally selected and city-designated intangible folk cultural property. The shrine is about 10 minutes on foot from the Shindaikumachi tram stop.
Sources
- OfficialNagasaki Prefecture Tourism Association (Nagasaki Tabinet) www.nagasaki-tabinet.com
- OfficialNagasaki City (Cultural Properties Division) www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp
Last checked: Oct 10, 2026. Event information is based on official announcements, but changes may not always be reflected here. Please check each official website for accurate details.
Other events this month
On the day, see what locals are murmuring on the murmur map
murmur is an app that shows short, anonymous posts on a map, right where they were written. On festival day, open the map around the venue and see what people nearby are saying.