Samurai Sword Dance in Kyoto Attracting Foreign Visitors

You've of course heard of Samurai and all those peripheral cultures attached to it. And here's a fresh approach to Samurai culture with foreign visitors taking part in it.

The world's largest "word-of-mouth" tourist information site "Trip Adviser" announced last June to add to their List of 20 Most Popular Sightseeing Spots for Foreigners in Japan another entertainment "Samurai Kembu Theater (Samurai Sword Dance Theater)". Opened last year, it's a variation of the traditional sword dance adapted to entertain foreign tourists, who will personally take part in action.

Now, it so happened that Samurai Kembu Theater is already ranked 10th and becoming still going strong. At the top of the list is Fushimi Inari Shrine, another experience-it-yourself type of entertainment like Samurai Kembu Theater.

Samurai Kembu Theater is a spinoff of the original "Kembu Session" initiated by Master Ouga Magari, 30, of the Seiga School of sword dance in Otsu. Participants are clad in traditional formal samurai costumes to perform sword dance with a practice sword.

Participants experience not only how to use the sword but also how to bow and a set of manners that come with the art of sword dance. The whole process of sword dance is taught in English and stories spread fast in the internet, and some 3,000 have visited Kyoto from abroad just to experience sword dance.

According to Sankei Shinbum, an Italian tourist Alexandro Daniotti, 34, found samurai sword dance so charming: "I've been visiting places watching things. That's fun as it is, but I wanted to experience something unusual. This sword dance is unique. I loved it." He listened to the English-speaking lecturer attentively and felt "very satisfied learning culture and history firsthand".

A survey shows 31.1% of foreign visitors to Kyoto enjoyed "appreciation and experience of traditional cultures" the most in 2014, an increase by 4.5% as compared with the previous year.