Mikomai which means dance of shrine maidens, that is, dances performed by shrine maidens. It is an ancient Japanese Shinto dance, written in Japanese kanji characters like 巫女舞 or 神子舞.
The women who serve the gods are called shrine maidens and in the past they used to lead people through the God Gakari, in which gods and people became one.
The repetitive movements to perform Kamigakari were refined into miko dancing, where shrine maidens whirl back and forth according to traditional ritual rules to cleanse their bodies before being possessed by the gods.
The Mikomai Dance originated as a ritual in which a deity descended onto a maiden in charge of rituals and was styled to become a dance for prayers and dedications.
