Maritime

Kabuki theatre

© Umemura Yutaka

Kabuki is a Japanese traditional theatre form, which originated in the Edo period at the beginning of the seventeenth century and was particularly popular among townspeople.

Jultagi, tightrope walking

© National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage

Tightrope walking is a widespread form of entertainment that in most countries focuses purely on acrobatic skill. The traditional Korean performing art of Jultagi is distinctive in that it is accompanied by music and witty dialogue between the tightrope walker and an earthbound clown. Jultagi is performed outside.

Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut

© National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage

The Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut is a ritual held in the second lunar month to pray for calm seas, an abundant harvest and a plentiful sea catch. The rites held at Chilmeoridang in the village of Gun-rip are representative of similar ceremonies held throughout the island of Jeju in the Republic of Korea. Village shamans perform a series of rituals to the goddess of the winds (Grandmother Yeondeung), the Dragon King Yongwang and mountain gods.

Indonesian Batik

© Batik Museum Institute, Pekalongan

The techniques, symbolism and culture surrounding hand-dyed cotton and silk garments known as Indonesian Batik permeate the lives of Indonesians from beginning to end: infants are carried in batik slings decorated with symbols designed to bring the child luck, and the dead are shrouded in funerary ba

Indonesian Angklung

© Centre for Research and Development of Culture, Indonesia

Angklung is an Indonesian musical instrument consisting of two to four bamboo tubes suspended in a bamboo frame, bound with rattan cords. The tubes are carefully whittled and cut by a master craftsperson to produce certain notes when the bamboo frame is shaken or tapped. Each Angklung produces a single note or chord, so several players must collaborate in order to play melodies.

Hudhud chants of the Ifugao

© Renato S. Rastrollo / NCCA-ICH / UNESCO

The Hudhud consists of narrative chants traditionally performed by the Ifugao community, which is well known for its rice terraces extending over the highlands of the northern island of the Philippine archipelago. It is practised during the rice sowing season, at harvest time and at funeral wakes and rituals. Thought to have originated before the seventh century, the Hudhud comprises more than 200 chants, each divided into 40 episodes. A complete recitation may last several days.

Hua’er

© Hezheng County Bureau of Culture

In Gansu and Qinghai Provinces and throughout north-central China, people of nine different ethnic groups share a music tradition known as Hua’er.

Hitachi Furyumono

© Association for the Preservation of Hitachi Hometown Performing Arts

The Hitachi Furyumono is a parade held during the cherry blossom festival each April in Hitachi City on the Pacific coast in the middle of Japan, and once every seven years in May during the Great Festival at the local Kamine Shrine.

Hezhen Yimakan storytelling

© Center for Safeguarding ICH of Heilongjiang Province, China

Yimakan storytelling is essential to the worldview and historical memory of the Hezhen ethnic minority of north-east China.

Hayachine Kagura

© Nakamura Yoshiyuki

In the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when the people of Iwate Prefecture in the northern part of mainland Japan worshipped Mt.

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