Every summer evening from July 11 to September 5 — thirty-one nights in all — music rises from the streets of Gujo Hachiman, and before long, strangers are dancing together in the lamplight. This is not a festival you watch. It is one you join. The ten traditional dances have been passed down for four centuries not through classes or instruction manuals, but through the simple fact of being there — watching, then following, then forgetting that you are following. The climax comes on August 13–16, when the dancing continues through the night without pause. By dawn, the line between visitor and local, between performer and audience, has dissolved entirely. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.