The Koenji Engei Festival is a ten-day event offering rakugo, manzai, magic and other forms of traditional entertainment in a variety of locations including shrines and and funeral parlors in the area around Koenji station. This 13th festival featured Daikagura performances on the streets, rakugo and manzai in shrines and temples, as well as rokyoku and kodan performances in a disused elementary school.
Executive Committee for the Koenji Engei Festival
A large number of yose engei performers have lived in the Koenji district since ancient times, so there is a culture of safeguarding and cultivating the tradition. There used to be an entertainment hall that accommodated several hundred people, and even now several places including the ZA-KOENJI Public Theatre continue to hold regular yose performances. We have gathered them together at the same time, solicited new venues, and grown it into a festival. The aim of putting on yose engei entertainment centering around rakugo is to get people to recognize yose engei as a form of arts and culture from the Koenji area, on top of being something they know and feel comfortable with.
Theatre-Koenji
Chosennji Dansintojimusho
Horinouti-Myohoji
Chozenji
koshin-Bunkakaikan
Heian-Saiten
Watanabe-Kensetu Corpration
Hikawa-Jinjya, Suginami City, Tokyo