MI Bon Festival Project #MIBON2022
Remembering 2021, dreaming 2022
…invitation to last year’s Michigan Bon Festival 2021 #MIBON2021
Last Summer 2021, the Great Lakes Taiko Center (GLTC) celebrated our first annual Michigan Bon Festival on August 7th 2021 with taiko performances by Tanoshii Taiko Tai, Godaiko Drummers, and Raion Taiko, and we premiered the new Michigan Ondo song and dance by Kyoko Johnson & Noriko Maidens, our MI Bon project creators.
At this Michigan Bon Festival (MI Bon 2021), we celebrated our past year of taiko connections, like our Bondaiko Bondance Kane (BBK) online class and outdoor group practices, and we honored the people and places of our taiko community as we gathered to share and dance Michigan Ondo and other obon songs together.
Participation in last year's event was limited to GLTC members and their guests, for COVID safety reasons, but we look forward to inviting more people to future MI Bon festivals. We are now forming a planning committee for our 2nd annual MI Bon summer festival 2022.
Let's dream about #MIBON2022 together! ~Eileen Ho & Larry An, GLTC co-directors and members Taiko Centering 2022 #TaikoDreams
#mibon2021 reflections
Link to the Japan News Club (09/25/2021 Metro Detroit publication, in Japanese) sharing about our first MI Bon festival, with translation by Kyoko Johnson:
Hello from the Great Lakes Taiko Center (GLTC)! On August 7th 2021, we held our first annual MI Bon Festival at Wildlife Woods Park in Novi, Michigan.
Since the grand opening of the Great Lakes Taiko Center in 2009, we have been teaching taiko to various age groups, holding all different kinds of concerts, and giving performances in the community. We also had annual recitals nine years in a row. We know a lot of you readers have come to see our recitals.
In 2020, we just started to prepare for the 10th annual recital, but due to the spread of COVID, we had to give up this idea. Not only that but also we had to give up in-person taiko classes and performances. We tried to seek alternative ways to keep taiko activity going, such as online Zoom classes, bonding with other taiko groups all over the United States, and submitting video clips to the 2020 World Taiko Conference. All these ways were new to us and there were a lot of challenges to keep us going.
In September 2020, one of our instructors who learned “bondaiko” in Japan, started teaching bondaiko via zoom (Bondaiko is the taiko played along with bondance music, normally played on the platform called Yagura, one of the great features of the event itself). Around the same time, we learned a bondance music called “EiJaNaiKa” composed by PJ Hirabayashi, a famous taiko player in California. We had known that there are a lot of bondance festivals going on here in the United States, mostly hosted by Japanese Communities and Japanese American communities, but we didn’t quite realize that there ARE original bondances which are deeply attached to the nature and people of the United States.* Then we came up with the idea: How about creating our own bondance music - taiko, kane, voice, and dancing? Writing lyrics, composing music, creating choreography, in three months we completed “Michigan Ondo.” Now all we needed was an event at which we could present this “Michigan Ondo” including bondaiko, a new taiko style students are learning. Also we wanted something which can be a replacement for the recital we couldn’t do. In December 2020, we created the “MI Bon Project.” MI Bon Project has a goal to have an event which combines Taiko performance and Bondance together with MI meaning both Michigan and “My” ~ Our Michigan Bonodori!
On Saturday morning after the rain, there were about 70 people gathered at Wildlife Woods Park - performers and students from Great Lakes Taiko Center and their friends and families. We had taiko performances by Raion Taiko and Godaiko Drummers, and the newly formed group, Tanoshii Taiko Tai. They all had really fun performances. In the Bondance part, we danced “Tanko-Bushi,” “Tokyo Ondo,” and “Tokyo Olympic Ondo 2020”...timely music since the Tokyo Olympics 2020 was going on. Next we presented “Michigan Ondo” with live singing by Keiko Kato together with bondaiko. It was so exciting for so many people dancing together.
Due to the circumstances, this first annual MI Bon Festival was for our taiko center members only, but we would like to extend this event as an open community event with lots of audience next time. We would be happy if we could introduce and get a deeper understanding of Japanese culture here in Michigan through Taiko. Thank you very much for your warm support.
{from Kyoko Johnson with Noriko Maidens, August 2021}
*Under this COVID pandemic, everybody’s lifestyle changed. We thought about what can keep our Southeastern Michigan Taiko community stay connected. Also, we would like to welcome new people to learn about our unique Taiko culture. At that time we took a kaDon class learning “Tucson Ondo” from Odaiko Sonora in Arizona. They were inspired by Japanese bondance and created their own!! With this and PJ Hirabayashi’s “Ei Ja Nai Ka” from Taiko Peace, we thought this is what we can do, creating our own bonodori music. That’s how we made “Michigan Ondo” (audio and song lyrics below).
#MIBon2021 snapshots
CREDITS: Romeo Diccion (graphics); Akiyo Fisher & Eileen S. Ho (photos)
michigan ondo: bon music, song & dance
World of taiko & tradition of obon
Obon: An Evolving Tradition (virtual presentation and panel at the 2021 TCA/BTD closing session)
On August 1st 2021, the Taiko Community Alliance (TCA) held a virtual conference called "Beyond The Drum" (BTD), and the closing session topic was about the evolving tradition of Obon in our taiko communities! Here are links and description of the BTD Closing Session w/Kay Fukumoto & panelists on TCA's YouTube channel:
INTRO of Kay Fukumoto (starting at 8:50) [Pause due to tech issues from 15:10-18:35] and Kay's presentation continues (at 18:35) ...The centuries-old Obon tradition on Maui is about the bravery, struggles, and eventual triumph of sugar plantation immigrants who settled on Maui. Kay Fukumoto shares her fifty-year journey as she perpetuates the Obon song “Fukushima Ondo” through Maui Taiko. Obon on the island struggled to attract the younger generation which could have eventually ended the tradition. Keeping Obon alive meant change but required a balance to keep traditional elements.
Panelists Wynn Kiyama, Reiko Iwanaga, Reverend Ronald Miyamura, Isaku Kageyama, Paul Sakamoto and PJ Hirabayashi also share their Obon insights as observations about the future [of Obon] are thought-provoking. How do these conversations relate to your own journey with taiko and traditions that are forming as you connect through communities “Beyond the Drum”?
Once all the story sharing is done, we will wrap-up the conference with an Obon medley featuring Fukushima Ondo, Taiko Voices, and Ei Ja Nai Ka. We encourage you to join in and play or dance to your heart’s content!
[Resource referenced by the panel: The Obon Music Project]