NH man first non-Japanese person to participate in Tanigumi Dance

MANCHESTER, N.H. —

A Granite Stater has made history by taking part in a centuries-old tradition in a small Japanese town.

The Tanigumi Dance is an important tradition and part of Japan’s cultural heritage. For the first time in its 800-year history, someone who is not from Japan was invited to join.

In the dance, Matt Croasdale, 38, wore a massive, colorful bamboo fan that represents the wing of a phoenix and carried a large taiko drum.

The dance marks the start of spring and is a prayer for a good harvest in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It has been designated an “intangible folk cultural asset” by the Japanese government.

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Croasdale and his wife now live in Gifu, where he joined the volunteer fire department. Since many of those firefighters take part in the dance, Croasdale was invited, too.

“I was apprehensive about it at first,” he said. “I felt like it was 800 years old. It’s very specific to their culture there. And I was like, I don’t know, some people might not like to see me in it, but I got a lot of encouragement from them and other people in the community. So I thought, why not? Sounds like fun.”

“It was overwhelming,” he said. “It was a lot harder than I thought.”

Croasdale practiced with the group for weeks to get the dance just right. He said he felt even more pressure when Japanese media picked up his story.

But he said friends and neighbors gave him good reviews, and he’s planning to participate as long as they’ll have him.