It’s Obon Season!

 

Bon Odori dancers circle the yagura at a past JAA Obon & Taiko Festival held at Alton Baker Park in Eugene.

The 33rd annual Obon & Taiko Festival produced by the Japanese American Association of Lane County (JAA) will take place on Saturday, August 24, 2024. As a member of both the JAA and Eugene Taiko, I have participated in every JAA Obon since its inception.
 
The O-Bon is an annual Buddhist event in Japan that honors ancestors, whose spirits temporarily return to visit their living relatives. Celebrated in July or August, depending on the region, Obon serves as a significant period for family reunions and ancestral commemoration. Participants light small bonfires known as mukaebi and okuribi to guide the spirits of ancestors to and from family homes. Lanterns hung in front of houses further guide the spirits, and at the end of Obon, people release floating lanterns into rivers, lakes, and seas to send the spirits back to their world. Families clean graves, offer flowers, incense, and food to honor their ancestors, and prepare special foods to nourish and comfort visiting spirits.
 
A central feature of Obon is the Bon Odori, or Bon Dance, performed to welcome and entertain ancestral spirits. The dance typically occurs around a yagura, a traditional raised platform crucial to the festival. The yagura serves as the central stage for Bon Odori, with dancers forming a circle around it, moving in unison to the rhythm of taiko drums and other musical instruments. Drummers or musicians positioned on the yagura project the sound of the drums and music, guiding the dancers and creating a festive atmosphere. Colorful lanterns, banners, and streamers attached to the yagura add to the festive atmosphere and make them visually striking, especially at night when lanterns light up. Symbolically, the yagura represents a connection between the earthly realm and the spirits of ancestors, serving as an architectural (albeit fleeting) focal point for the community to gather around and celebrate together.

Bon Odori dancers and yagura at Zōjō-ji in Tokyo (photo by Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

 
The size and shape of different yagura vary, but each is usually square or rectangular, with a height ranging from a few feet to several meters. Our yagura is relatively small and simple. Over the years, I increasingly assumed responsibility for overseeing its setup at each JAA Obon, so I do appreciate its clever design by the greatly missed Ken Nagao, which allows for the yagura’s easy assembly and disassembly. While the yagura at many other Obon celebrations do function as a platform for taiko performers, ours is too small to accommodate more than a couple of drums at once; nevertheless, it has served admirably in its role as that traditional hub for the festival.

Ei Ja Nai Ka, the finale dance at the 2023 Obon & Taiko Drumming Festival in Eugene (video by Susie Barton Yamamoto).

 
I invite everyone to attend our Obon & Taiko Festival on August 24, which will take place inside the Performance Hall at the Lane Events Center. This is a first, as all previous events have been outdoors, most recently at Alton Baker Park in Eugene in successful partnership with the Oregon Asian Celebration. Moving Obon indoors is partly an accommodation for the JAA elders, who increasingly had chosen not to attend due to uncomfortably high temperatures.
 
Obon represents a time of remembrance and gratitude, reflecting the deep respect for ancestry and the interconnectedness of family and community in Japanese culture. The yagura—a symbolic focus of the celebration—speaks to architecture’s power to meaningfully convey and sustain cultural traditions.