It was Okinawan night at the Jikoen Hongwanji on July 25, 2008. That’s right, 100% Uchinanchu! Historically, Jikoen only featured Okinawan dancing at their obon and required dancers to wear a full kimono (no hapi coats). In recent years, they introduced Japanese dances into the program and loosened up their dress code. On Friday, they went back to their roots and dedicated the entire evening to Okinawan songs and dances once again. They even held a kachashi contest at the end of the night.

Photos from the evening can be found in my Obon 2008 Flickr set.

Hawaii’s Plantation Village
Waipahu, Hawaii
June 7, 2008, 6:00 - 10:00 p.m

The Dancing Fools gathered for the first bon dance of 2008 at Hawaii’s Plantation Village in Waipahu. It seems only appropriate to kick off the season at such a historic locale. After all, it was the plantations that brought the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii, bringing with them the culture and traditions of their homeland, bon dances being one of them.

Here are some scenes from the bon dance:

Mike enjoys the bon dances by capturing the scene in his art. This time last year, he made the line drawing of this plantation train. This year, he put the finishing touches on the piece with watercolors.

A group photo of half of the bon dance posse

Ryan, Shari, and Donna

Renee, graciously brought Happy Hearts Mochi to share with us. There was not one mochi left by the time we were done! Thank you, Renee!

A great time was had by all! See you at the next one!

Here’s a videolog from last year’s event. (Sorry for the poor quality of the video. This was before I discovered the optimal settings for saving video for the web.) To see more videos from the 2007 bon dance season, visit our Videos section.