Robin Meade filmed the video, and his children Christopher, Amanda and Nicholas were among the dancers. Because of social distancing, they couldn’t have too many people in the kitchen at one time. I think the public will miss the food.” Instead of making the labor-intensive meat sticks, she and others made 150 bentos this year, featuring the grilled meat slices marinated in the teriyaki sauce the temple is famous for, she said. “People go to bon dances because of the barbecue meat sticks, andagi (doughnuts), Spam musubi and shave ice. The bon dance is the temple’s major fundraiser, but its cancellation causes Umitani to worry about finances because “what we can do is very limited.”Īnn Nakata, a longtime member who danced in the video, said she is usually in the kitchen making local favorites. The temple’s 200-some members could also purchase pre-ordered barbecue bento, traditional bon dance towels (tenugui) and name tags in memory of deceased loved ones that were hung on the Japanese lanterns (chochin). Moiliili Hongwanji Mission’s virtual July 4 bon dance had a few in-person offerings as well. The temple went through great pains to get copyright approval to use recordings of Japan’s Madoka no Kai folk singers performing “Tanko Bushi” (a coal miner folk song) and “Tokyo Ondo.” They all wore masks with their happi coats and kimono, and danced around a miniature yagura (raised stage) on the front porch of the temple, under glowing pink-and-white lanterns. Moiliili’s video, shown on the temple’s YouTube channel, and runs over an hour long, includes a service, clips of past bon dances, a tutorial on basic bon dance moves and footage of several members recently filmed dancing to popular classics. Other Hongwanji temples have also created bon dance videos and offered messages from their ministers, now posted on their Facebook pages: Wahiawa Hongwanji Mission’s bon dance team of 10 performed a few songs for a Zoom video and service on June 27 and the Ewa and Mililani Hongwanji temples made a joint YouTube video June 20, featuring past bon dance clips. … This year, we are not able to celebrate the obon in a traditional manner, but we still can learn what the obon teaches us.” It’s a time to realize how much their loved ones have done for them, and cultivate a sense of joy and gratitude, he added. Umitani said bon season, which runs through August, “is a time for each of us to remember our departed loved ones, reflect upon our own lives, and come to a realization of the oneness (interdependence and interconnectedness) of all lives. > PHOTOS: Moiliili Hongwanji Mission bon dance Bon (season) is like summer has finally come! We hope people will feel the energy of summer.” Toshiyuki Umitani, the temple’s resident minister, said the video would never be able to duplicate the liveliness and excitement of a real bon dance, “but we’re trying to provide a little bit of it. The event is normally so large it’s held at the former Varsity Theatre parking lot, and spills out into nearby Coyne Street. They all come to enjoy eating ono local favorites, playing games, and dancing to the beat of taiko drums and shamisen (three-stringed Japanese instrument) music, whether or not they know the ritual dance moves. Japanese immigrants brought the obon (shortened to “bon”) tradition to Hawaii, many of them settling into Moiliili, one of the oldest neighborhoods, which now encompasses people of diverse ethnicity. (It was not a livestreamed video and can be played anytime.) To fill the void left by its cancellation, they’ve made a video to encourage their members to hold their own small celebrations at home, and provided other tangible ways for them to get into the spirit, including bentos. Moiliili Hongwanji Mission organizers knew how badly their members would miss its annual bon dance, which highlights the popular community-wide annual Moiliili Summer Fest every July. With Zoom meetings taking the place of public gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, there have been everything from online cocktail hours to church services, so why not virtual bon dances?
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