Summer nights, paper lanterns, drummers, dancers, food! Honolulu’s bon dance season kicks off tonight with the big one beneath the looming white stupas of Honpa Hongwanji on Pali Highway, a two-night fest that draws more than 1,000 people a night. It’s actually third on the Islandwide schedule, but the first in the urban corridor.
No two temples are alike. With members chipping in closely guarded recipes, scouring the island for the freshest ingredients and even importing ideas from Japan, a handful of temples are known as much for their food as for their dances, taiko drumming and live festival music from the central yagura towers.
A few things they all have in common. Bon is Japanese Buddhism’s season to honor the dead, a huge three-day holiday that to this day empties out cities in August as Japanese head home to the countryside. In Hawaii, plantation workers organized summer bon dances in the cane fields, but with all the sake flowing around, temples took over and spread the events from June through September.
Today bon dances are like carnivals, good times for families and communities, where non-Japanese, tourists, even the most uncoordinated uncle who shows up everywhere in T-shirt and rubber slippers, are invited to jump in. The movements are simple and repetitive, happy and hypnotic: People are smiling, arms waving, feet stepping in unison with hundreds of others under lanterns and stars.
And the dances? Everything from traditional country favorites like Tanko Bushi, a coal-mining number that draws even the most dance-challenged; to the fun, lilting movements of Okinawan dances; to newer stuff like Electric Slide and Pokemon Ondo. If you know nothing about bon dancing, follow the moves of the inner circles, where dance troupes in identical yukata lead the numbers.
That’s another thing: You don’t need a yukata or happi coat to dance, although many temples sell them. The formal silk kimono hanging on your wall has no place here — happi and yukata are strictly cotton, thin and cool for summer. Ask one of the yukata-clad ladies how to fasten your obi: Chances are they’ve come early to help each other tie the intricate sashes, or have already taught this to their granddaughters.
Through the evening, different troupes will take turns in the red-and-white yagura or tower, playing bamboo flutes, hand gongs and shamisen while others pound the taiko drums below.
The whole air of a bon dance is happy: Temple members hang the lanterns to welcome home the dead, and some will be dancing hatsu-bon for family lost within the year. Haleiwa Jodo Mission takes tradition full circle, ending with a toro nagashi, a floating of candlelit lanterns on the sea to guide the spirits back to their world.
2009 Oahu bon dance schedule
Today-Saturday: Honpa Hongwanji, Hawaii Betsuin, 6:30 p.m., 536-7044.
Today-Saturday:: Wahiawa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 622-4320.
July 3-4: Moiliili Community Center/Moiliili Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 949-1659.
July 3: Kaneohe Higashi Hongwanji, 6:30 p.m., 247-2661.
July 10-11: Waipahu Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 677-4221.
July 11: Tendai Mission, 7 p.m., 595-2556.
July 10-11: Koboji Shingon Mission, 7 p.m., 841-7033.
July 17-18: Shinshu Kyokai Mission, 7:30 p.m., 973-0150.
July 17-18: Haleiwa Shingon Mission, 8 p.m., 637-4423.
July 18: Kailua Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7 p.m., 262-4560.
July 18: Waianae Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7 p.m., 622-4320.
July 24-25: Jikoen Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 6 p.m., 845-3422.
July 24-25: Palolo Higashi Hongwanji, 7:30 p.m., 732-1491.
July 24-25: Haleiwa Jodo Mission, 7 p.m., 637-4382.
July 24-25: Wahiawa Ryusenji Soto Mission, 7:30 p.m., 622-1429.
July 25: Kahuku Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 293-5268.
July 31-Aug 1: Higashi Hongwanji Betsuin, 7:30 p.m., 531-9088.
July 31-Aug. 1: Manoa Koganji Temple, 5:30 p.m.; 988-7214.
July 31-Aug. 1: Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji, 7 p.m., 671-3103.
Aug. 1: Waialua Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 625-0925.
Aug. 7-8: Shingon Mission of Hawaii, 7 p.m., 941-5663.
Aug. 7-8: Pearl City Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 455-1680.
Aug. 7-8: Soto Mission of Aiea-Taiheiji, 7:30 p.m., 488-6794.
Aug. 14-15: Soto Mission of Hawaii, 7:30 p.m., 537-9409.
Aug. 21-22: Mililani Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7:30 p.m., 625-0925.
Aug. 22: Kapahulu Senior Center, 5 p.m., 737-1748.
Aug. 29: Nichiren Mission of Hawaii, 6:30 p.m., 595-3517.
Aug. 29: Aiea Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 7 p.m., 488-5685.
Sept. 5-6: Okinawan Festival, 5:30 p.m., 676-5400
Sept. 19: Hawaii United Okinawa Center, 5 p.m., 676-5400
