Within Japan each year Okinawans gather to celebrate their Ryukyuan heritage through a series of festivals centered on the Eisa folk dance. These events take place in multiple locations across the country, notably in Okinawa City, Osaka and Tokyo. With them come the dancers, singers, performers and revelers to impart their traditional music, dance, food and hospitality to all who’ll partake.
As other students of visual anthropology have noted[1][2], the colorful costumes and vibrant dancing is the centerpiece of the festival. The culmination of the festival is a final dance in which the audience is welcomed to participate. Local Japanese, Okinawan descendents and non-Japanese foreigners as well all gather. Smaller parties also take place under the shaded tents of private groups. Here, perhaps, is where the real sharing takes place though. Joyful revelers playing music and dancing may welcome any willing and daring enough to participate in the celebration, and attempt the simple but lively hand movements of the dance. Two of my fellow students shed their inhibitions and joined such a group who invited them, and so a part of not just Japanese culture, but Okinawan culture will be taken home with them.
The blending of cultural elements does not come just from the imparting of Okinawan culture upon Japanese and foreign festival goers though. Looking around evidence of an ebb and flow in both directions can be seen in many forms as well. For instance there's the family that uses a Peanuts inspired picnic placemat from Baskin Robbins blends Japanese kawaii (cute) culture with US cultural references and products. Turn around and you can see Okinawan dancers posing for a picture with a Canadian international student, flashing the quintessential V-sign so popular in Japanese photographs. All of these elements culminate in the Eisa Festival as more than just a celebration of Okinawan culture. In these respects it also shows the many ways in which culture is being shared locally, and internationally.
More information on past Eisa Festival events, and images, can be found courtesy of Okinawa Bunko (in Japanese).
