Tag: Eisa

A Night After Okinawan Bon Festival in Yakena

a drummer and female dancers perform Eisa

In Uruma City on central Okinawa Island, there is a small neighborhood called Yakena. This quiet community on the east coast used to be a busy intermediate hub port between the north and the south of the island during the Ryukyu Kingdom period. Today, the place is well-known for Eisa, Okinawan Bon Dancing, and its style is considered as the root of modern Eisa.

In contrast to Okinawa City’s large drum-based Eisa dancing through a series of songs, Yakena’s theatrical style performance consists of multiple stages with a beginning, middle, and end.

This movie was filmed on the 16th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, a day after Okinawan Bon Festival, in 2018.

Yakena, Uruma City, Okinawa

August 26th, 2018

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Quiet Nights of Bon Festival again in Okinawa

a drummer raises the small drum high and male dancers on the back

As the record number of the Covid-19 patients were being treated at home due to the lack of hospital beds, Okinawa just had Kyubon (lunar calendar-based Bon Festival) this past weekend.

However, as a number of the covid cases stayed high, the governor strongly discouraged people from having family gatherings. Also, local youth groups had to cancel Eisa dancing, a part of the Okinawan Bon Festival tradition, again this year.

The following video was filmed in Okinawa City, a mecca of Eisa, on the last day of Kyubon in 2018.

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Traditional Style of Okinawa Eisa Dance in Ginowan

A white-faced man stands in position for dancing

Since Okinawa will enter Kyubon (Bon Festival in the lunar calendar) in just a few days, here’s another story of Eisa, Okinawan Bon dancing.

The image of Okinawa’s Eisa dance these days would be jumping around with large and small drums. In contrast, Ganeko Youth Association from Ginowan City practices a simple and more traditional style Eisa. They consist of men dressed in black clothes reminding of a Buddhist monk with small tambourine-like drums, women in yukata, white-faced dancers, and a band of sanshin players. This style originates from Yokatsu Peninsula on the east coast in the middle of Okinawa Honto Island.

The sanshin players are necessary but kind of hidden from the rest of the group in Eisa. However, the singing and the sound of sanshin are more prominent in this style. Listening to Okinawa Minyo (folk) songs is one way to enjoy the group’s performance as well.

This is a short video filmed during Kyubon Festival in 2019:

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Bon Festival and Eisa in Okinawa

Young male Okinawans drum and dance in circle

It’s been a while since I wrote the last post. Okinawa is having the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita in Japan and the worst number of cases since the pandemic broke out. However, I will try to get back on track to create and post here in the blog.

Mainland Japan’s Bon Festival is over now, but Okinawa’s Kyubon is yet to come. It looks like there will be no Eisa, Okinawa’s Bon dancing, on the street again due to the covid.

To keep the Eisa spirit alive, I’ve been posting the Eisa videos from previous years on Instagram. This video is featuring Nishibaru Youth Association from Urasoe in 2019.

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Bon Festical, Eisa, Typhoon, and COVID-19

The last week was one of the most important events of the year for Okinawans, the Bon Festival. However, the three-day festival was unusually quiet due to the COVID-19 and Typhoon Bavi.

Young female dancers
On the night of the Bon, local youth groups play drums along with the sanshin music to perform Eisa on the street.
But, there was no sound of drums or sanshin this year.
To honor the spirits of our ancestors and to celebrate this traditional culture of Okinawa, Eisa, I uploaded the video clips of Eisa from last year.

Enjoy!

The drum-centered style of Eisa performed by Uranishi Youth Association in Urasoe, Okinawa:

The traditional style of Eisa performed by Ganeko Youth Association in Ginowan, Okinawa:

View this post on Instagram

Today is the last day of the Okinawan Bon Festival for most of the people (tomorrow for the rest), but sadly, there is no drum and Sanshin sound due to the COVID-19. So, this is an excerpt from Ganeko Youth Association’s Eiso performance on the last day of the Bon Festival last year. 太鼓と三線の音が響いて来ないちょっと寂しいウークイの夜に、昨年の宜野湾の我如古青年会によるウークイの夜のエイサー演舞をほんの少しお届けします。 2019年，沖縄中元節第3天，宜野湾市我如古青年會的Eisa太鼓舞。 #eisa #ginowan #エイサー #我如古青年会 #okinawajapan #琉球 #沖繩 #宜野湾 #中元節 #旧盆 #七月節 #傳統文化

A post shared by Ryu 龍平 Okada (@ryufilms) on

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