Hokkai Heso Matsuri aka the Belly Button Festival is a fun-filled event that originated in the city of Furano around 1969. It started off as a simple dance festival, but later became a humorous and creative event with an aim to bring unity through laughter. Are you wondering what it has to do with belly buttons?
Do you think it is some kind of sexy samba style festival? Well, Furano is exactly at the center of Hokkaido, often
nicknamed as the belly button of the island.
Also, the city is very large in area but sparsely populated due to the presence of mountains. So, to attract pe
ople scattered here and there in Furano, a few volunteers came up with an idea of starting a belly button festival. The center of one’s body is the belly button and Furano is the center of Hokkaido.
Thus, local residents have incorporated the concept of the belly button into a festival of their own! Dancers paint faces onto their chests and stomachs, using the belly button as the mouth of the character. They then proceed to belly dance their way down the streets!
Initially, the festival drew a very small crowd and not even locals were interested in attending. However, over the course of time, it has become an incredibly popular festival thanks to media coverag
e showcasing the uniqueness and humor associated with the festival. Participants paint their bellies like faces then dance together in a comical way which gets the whole crowd chuckling.
Among Japan’s many festivals, the Belly Button Festival is one of just a handful that is not related to religion or nature. It is an event purely designed for fun.
The bellies of the participants wearing costumes are painted creatively with funny faces, thus enacting a humorous display of human gathering.
The main theme of the festival is not the painted belly march but the ‘heso odori (へそ踊り)’ or ‘belly dance’ that makes it particularly fun. Participants dance in competitions to win prizes by performing unique and funny dances together. The fact that thousands of people attended this
festival in 2016 just out of curiosity shows how popular the festival is becoming.
