Japanese Taiko Drumming and Bon Dance
Free Admission (Advance Registration Required)
#MIBON2023 is a Community Project presented by the Great Lakes Taiko Center (五大湖太鼓センター) and hosted by Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
The 2023 Japanese Garden Tour Season and related cultural programming is sponsored, in part, by the Clannad Foundation and the Japan Business Society of Detroit.
This event is sold out.
Come as you are this summer—or wear your favorite festive clothing, like a Japanese yukata kimono or happi jacket—and join Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research and the members of the Great Lakes Taiko Center for a Japanese Bon Festival at Cranbrook. Whether you call Japan or the United States home, whether you have participated in a traditional Japanese Bon Festival or not, all are welcome to join this community celebration of Japanese taiko drumming, music, song, and dance.
The Bon Festival, as described by Susan Osa, is an annual Japanese holiday (known as Obon in Japan) that commemorates and remembers deceased ancestors. It is believed that their spirits return to visit their living relatives in the summer months. Today, participants dance to express their joy to be living happily and to honor loved ones who have passed away. Central to its celebration among Japanese are the folk dances (Bon Odori) performed outdoors to music that includes the steady beat of a taiko (drum). The taiko sits on a raised platform, a yagura, and musicians use bachi, or drumsticks, on the taiko, to keep time for the Bon Odori dancers. While associated with Buddhism, Obon has become a time of family reunion celebrated and embraced by all, regardless of one’s religious background.*
The Japanese Bon Festival at Cranbrook coincides with the first day of Obon in Japan, traditionally a four-day festival. This year, the festival will be celebrated in Japan from August 13 through August 16. The festival at Cranbrook will take place in a grassy meadow on the shores of Kingswood Lake, just south of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden, in the shade of two majestic red pine trees. The spirited energy of taiko drumming will lead into a presentation of festive Bon Odori songs during which the performers will provide the audience with brief instructions and encourage them to join the dances. The Japanese Garden will be open throughout the Bon Festival for exploration and informal tours, including a musical interlude between activities in the open meadow. In case of rain, the celebration will move indoors to the PAC.
*To learn more about Obon and its evolution into Bon festivals in the United States, we suggest you read the article by Susan Osa written in 2006 for the Japanese American National Museum Store Online: "Gathering of Joy: A History of Japanese American Obon Festivals and Bon Odori."
SUNDAY AFTERNOON SCHEDULE AT CRANBROOK
Parking for the Bon Festival will take place in the Cranbrook Schools Performing Arts Center (PAC) Parking Lot, located at 550 Lone Pine Road, at the northeast corner of Lone Pine and Orchard Ridge Roads. A Cranbrook bus will take visitors to the Japanese Garden and the Bon Festival.
1:30pm First Shuttle Bus Departs Cranbrook Schools PAC Parking Lot
1:30 – 5:30pm Shuttle Bus Operates Continuously between PAC Parking Lot and Bon Festival
1:45 – 5:15pm Cranbrook Japanese Garden Tours Ongoing during the Bon Festival
2:15 – 3:15pm MI Bon Festival – Set One
● Taiko Drumming Performance by T3 Tanoshii Taiko Tai and A2 Taiko Players
● Songs for Bon Odori (Japanese Festival Dance)
○ Tokyo Ondo (1932, classic Obon festival song)
○ Michigan Ondo (2021, Kyoko Johnson and Noriko Maidens, GLTC)
○ Ei Ja Nai Ka (1997, PJ Hirabayashi, North American Taiko Conference)
3:15 – 3:45pm Interlude – Music in the Meadow and Japanese Garden
Sazanami Taiko Arts Ensemble and Sakura Japanese Instrumental Group
3:45 – 4:45pm MI Bon Festival – Set Two
● Taiko Drumming Performance by Godaiko Drummers and Raion Taiko
● Songs for Bon Odori (Japanese Festival Dance)
○ Tanko Bushi (another Obon classic)
○ Michigan Ondo
○ Ei Ja Nai Ka
5:30pm Last Shuttle Bus Departs Bon Festival and Returns to PAC Parking Lot
Parking and Shuttle Bus Information
All parking for the Bon Festival will be at the Cranbrook Schools Performing Arts Center (PAC). The PAC Parking Lot is located at 550 Lone Pine Road, at the northeast corner of Lone Pine Road and Orchard Ridge Road, Bloomfield Hills. A shuttle bus will pick up visitors at the entrance to the Performing Arts Center (on the east side of the PAC Parking Lot) and run continuously between the PAC Parking Lot and the Bon Festival (adjacent to the Cranbrook Japanese Garden).
Restrooms
Restrooms are available in the Performing Arts Center Lobby. During the Bon Festival, additional restrooms will be available in the Cranbrook House Gatehouse Welcome Center and accessible by a short ride on a golf cart. The golf cart will operate continuously during the Bon Festival.
Food and Beverages and Seating
Visitors are welcome to bring food and snacks. Soft drinks and water will be available for purchase at the Bon Festival. Visitors are also encouraged to bring their own folding chairs and picnic blankets to the festival; a limited supply of chairs and picnic tables will be provided by Cranbrook. Alcoholic beverages are not permitted at any time during the Bon Festival at Cranbrook.
Rain Plan
In case of rain or inclement weather, the Bon Festival will take place indoors, in the PAC. Parking will remain in the PAC Parking Lot. In case of rain, tours will not be available of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden.
ABOUT GREAT LAKES TAIKO CENTER / 五大湖太鼓センタター
Great Lakes Taiko Center (GLTC) celebrates the empowering art of Japanese taiko drumming. Taiko is rooted in Japanese music traditions and continues to grow today as a global cultural arts movement that amplifies imagination, uplifts spirits, and builds community. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and fiscally sponsored by the non-profit Open Collective Foundation, GLTC supports the sharing of Taiko Arts with its members and communities through classes and performances in Southeast Michigan and beyond. For more information on the Great Lakes Taiko Center and memberships, visit the GLTC website.
ABOUT THE #MIBON PROJECT
The Great Lakes Taiko Center (GLTC) celebrated the first annual MI Bon (“My” or Michigan Bon) Summer Festival on August 7, 2021, with taiko performances by groups in the GLTC Collective: Tanoshii Taiko Tai (T3), Godaiko Drummers, and Raion Taiko. The festival premiered the new Michigan Ondo (original song and dance) by Kyoko Johnson and Noriko Maidens, the MI Bon project creators. At this inaugural event, GLTC celebrated a year of taiko connections and programs and honored the people and places of the Michigan taiko community as they gathered to share the new Michigan Ondo, along with other folk songs and dances of the Japanese Bon Festival. Participation was limited in 2021 to GLTC members and their guests, for COVID safety reasons.
For the second annual festival, the 2022 MI Bon Planning Committee worked in partnership with the Novi (MI) Public Library to develop a broader audience. Despite an initial stormy weather cancellation in August, #MIBON2022 took place at the library on September 24. In addition to taiko drumming and folk dancing, the celebration included pre-event MI Bon drum and dance workshops, which were free and open to the public. More than two hundred people joined the event during which they enjoyed presentations of traditional Japanese festival pieces, contemporary Midwest compositions, and interactive Bon dance activities. To learn more, please visit the #MIBON2023 website.
CRANBROOK JAPANESE GARDEN TOURS
The Cranbrook Japanese Garden is among the oldest Japanese-style gardens in North America. Created in 1915 by Cranbrook founder George Gough Booth and his father Henry Wood Booth, this one-acre, pond-style strolling garden, which is centered on the Lily Pond and its two small islands, features an iconic vermillion Japanese-style bridge, the original Japanese Kasuga Lantern, and the recently rehabilitated Lily Pond Cascade with its new Mountain Lantern (yamadoro).
Throughout the 2023 Japanese Bon Festival at Cranbrook, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research tour guides will be available to lead informal walking tours through the garden and answer questions about the garden’s history and features, as well as provide an overview of the Center’s rejuvenation of the Japanese Garden under the direction and vision of Sadafumi Uchiyama, Chief Curator and Director of the International Training Institute at the Portland Japanese Garden in Oregon. For more information on the Cranbrook Japanese Garden, including the creation of the New Entrance Garden, please visit the Cranbrook Center’s Japanese Garden website.
ABOUT CRANBROOK CENTER FOR COLLECTIONS AND RESEARCH
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research (the Center) centralizes Cranbrook’s 119-year story and offers intellectual engagement with its legacy. Launched in 2012, the Center encompasses the management and curatorial leadership of Cranbrook’s campus-wide collection of Cultural Properties, Archives, historic architecture (most notably Cranbrook House, Saarinen House, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House), Cultural Heritage Areas, and cultural landscapes (including the Cranbrook Japanese Garden). By preserving and interpreting the community’s unparalleled landscape, architecture, collections, and archives, the Center provides memorable educational experiences and meaningful research opportunities for internal and external audiences. For more information, please visit the Center's website.
PHOTO CREDITS
Banner: Festival audience learning Bon dance movements and gestures for the song Michigan Ondo at #MIBON2022, September 24, 2022; Photography by Noriko Maidens.
The Great Lakes Taiko Center "T3/BBK Team" at Novi, Michigan, Public Library, #MIBON2022: Kyoko Johnson, Noriko Maidens, Rieko Muroi-Bowman, and Akiyo Fisher, the sensei for the T3 Tanoishii Taiko Tai community group and lead instructors of the Bondaiko-Bondance-Kane festival music class at the Great Lakes Taiko Center, September 24, 2022; Photography by Kyoko Johnson.
Taiko drums in the field at Wildlife Woods Park, Novi, MI, #MIBON2021; Photography by Eileen S. Ho.
Bon dancers in the field at Wildlife Woods Park, Novi, MI, #MIBON2021, August 7, 2021; Photography by Eileen S. Ho.
Great Lakes Taiko Center (GLTC) logo with MI-ON saying "Taiko is the greatest!!" The sound that a cat makes can be pronounced "mi-on" in Japanese, hence the name of the MI taiko playing cat (an endangered lynx species in Michigan) from the Great Lakes region.
MI Bon Logo, created in 2022 by Michigan artist Deanne Bednar with Great Lakes Taiko Center member Ronna Fisher.
Cranbrook Japanese Bridge, July 16, 2019; Photography by Eric Franchy, Courtesy Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.