Bon Odori; Obon; Japanese American festival; Seattle Buddhist Church
摘要
The Bon Odori festival is part of a period of mid-summer observance called Obon during which departed members of family and community are honored. This thesis examines the Bon Odori festival at Seattle Buddhist Church (a Jodo Shinshu temple), exploring embodied ways of remembering the past and performative processes of re-membering community in the present through the participatory dancing on which the event is centered. Employing historical ethnomusicological and phenomenological modes of analysis in addition to contemplating the politics of expressive culture, this study considers how dancers engage with personal histories even as they participate in commemorating and continuing Bon Odori’s nearly century-long history in the Pacific Northwest region. Repetition of a core repertoire of dances links the individual’s body memory of these familiar favorites to previous generations of performers, fostering an orientation of okagesamade, or respectful appreciation that one’s life is made possible because of others. As both participant demographics and preferred aesthetics change over time, curatorial moves on the part of festival organizers and creative engagement on the part of participants make Bon Odori an annual opportunity to (re)negotiate and (re)perform individual and collective identities. The various combinations of religious, ethnic, cultural, and social meaning that accrue to the festival are as diverse as the individuals who participate in this multiply framed event. Bon Odori reflects a shared motivation to commemorate the past and re-member, or cohere, a sense of self and a sense of community in the present through participatory performance.
