Bon Odori

I had the opportunity this past weekend to attend a Bon Festival, the Japanese holiday welcoming the spirits of one’s ancestors. As the country has become mostly urbanized and secularized, the festival has lost its spiritual overtones and become a cultural practice much like many other traditions from the past.

One part of the festivities I find very interesting are the associated dances called Bon Odori, that vary with the areas of Japan they originated in.  The dancers move gracefully to the rhythm of Taiko drums situated on a platform in the center of the stage accompanied by traditional songs called min’yo. Some dances celebrate the professions that villagers practiced like the Tanko Bushi, whose movements are based on coal miners daily exertions while others are more abstract like the Hanagasa Odori, which consists of elegant gestures done using hats decorated with flowers.

I liked the Nippon Daiko where dancers making rhythmic motions with drum sticks as if striking the Taiko while dancing around the platform synchronizing their movements to the drum.

Also despite my inability to appreciate most traditional Japanese vocal arts like Utai or Rakugo, I found these folk songs to be charming even in recordings and hope to hear live performances next time.

Thinking back on the Japanese movies I’ve watched, I can’t remember an instance of a Bon Odori on film except in Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. There a frenetic dance around a bonfire is performed annually in the province of Yamana, commemorating the evanescence of life and inspiring one of the main characters to realize their own smallness of perspective.