Gujo Odori

Gujo Odori, tracing to a late sixteenth-century feudal lord's effort to unite his domain through communal dance, spans thirty-one separate nights from mid-July through early September in the town of Gujo Hachiman. Its highlight, the all-night Tetsuya Odori held over four nights in mid-August, has participants dancing from evening until roughly five the next morning, and the tradition was UNESCO-listed in 2022.

Gujo Odori's origins are commonly traced to the late sixteenth century, when the local feudal lord Endo Yoshitaka is said to have encouraged communal dancing specifically to bring together residents of his domain regardless of social rank or status, an unusually egalitarian founding motivation compared with many Japanese festival traditions rooted in elite religious or military ceremony.