HANAPEPE — Bon dance festivities move to the Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple in Hanapepe on Friday and Saturday, said Gerald “Jerry” Hirata, president of the Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple.
“Bon season is a time for us all to come together as family and friends to honor the life of our loved ones,” said Rev. Hirosato Yoshida through the Kaua‘i Soto Zen June newsletter. “Every single person in this world has a mother, a father, grandparents, great grandparents, and it leads to our ancestors. With each of its generations bringing life to the next, we exist.”
The 2024 Soto Zen Bon Festival takes place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday with support and funding by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority through its Community Enrichment Program, the County of Kaua‘i and Kilohana: Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.
Other community sponsors include the Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau, Kaua‘i Kookie, Kaua‘i Coffee, Wong’s Restaurant, Hartung Brothers Hawai‘i and the Storybook Theater of Hawai‘i.
“At our festival this year, we explore the intersection of Hawaiian and Japanese cultures so our intermission performance will highlight this mixture of song and dance. We pay respect to Mary Mikahala Robinson Foster whose estate became the Foster Botanical Garden on O‘ahu,” Hirata said.
“As the first Hawaiian Buddhist, she gave a sapling of a Bodhi tree that was planted on our temple grounds. This Bodhi tree, through DNA testing of a leaf sample, was found to have ancestral ties to the descendants of the original tree that the Buddha sat under in India, going back 2,500 years.”
Attendees can visit the Bodhi tree, which is planted adjacent to the temple and overlooking the bon dance ring and yagura.
“Leilani Rivera Low will highlight our performance Saturday night only. We will remember and pay tribute to Leilani’s dad, Larry Rivera. Leilani will introduce and sing a Japanese song, ‘Koi’ which means love,” Hirata said.
“A hula was created for this song that will be performed by some of her hula halau dancers. Joining the dance will be the Soto Zen Ondo Dancers dressed in kimono, yukataa, and happi coats, performing the same song with ondo style dancing.”
Additionally, there will be exhibits on the temple’s immigrant and sugar plantation heritages, the traditional bon dances and music, and the bon dance food fare, which includes the flying saucers that originated at the Soto Zen temple in the 1950s, pronto pups, Spam musubi, hard ice and more.
Because the Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple is part of a neighborhood community, there are other events that overlap the bon celebration.
One is the presentation of “Ethical Quandaries Concerning Invasive Spiritual Plants: the Naturalization of Ficus religiosa on Kaua‘i” by Oregon State University Department of Integrative Biology Ph.D. graduate student Jazlee Crowley. The program starts at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Hanapepe Public Library conference room following the Hawai‘i State Public Library System’s Year of the Forest Birds that starts at 5:30 p.m.
Additionally, on Friday only, a shuttle bus will be running from the weekly Friday Night Art program presented by the Hanapepe Economic Alliance to the Kaua‘i Soto Zen bon dance festival.
For more information, visit www.kauaisotozen.org.
