Enburi Dancers come to Morse High School in Bath, Maine

Tsuneo Takahashi, 70, performs a comic routine as Ebisu, one of the seven gods of fortune, trying to catch a fish at Morse High School in Bath. (Troy R. Bennett / The Times Record)

The Enburi dancers are on an international friendship group, touring Maine and New York. They come from the Aomori Prefecture on the northern tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Aomori means “blue-green forest.”

In late october, 1889, the Bath ship Cheseborough was wrecked there. Nearby villagers rescued a number of the crew and passengers, caring for them until they were well enough to travel home. Citizens of that small village, called Shariki, never forgot their tie to Maine and in 1989 — 100 years later — they established a sister-city relation ship with Bath. This led to a permanent cultural and economic exchange committee that fosters visits such as this one.