Embodied Memory and Gendered Performance: Okinawan Women's Bon Dance in the Hawaiian Diaspora

This article examines the Bon Dance tradition as performed by Okinawan women in Hawaii, focusing on how gendered bodies become vehicles of cultural memory and identity within diasporic communities. Drawing on archival materials, ethnographic observation, and performance analysis, the study explores how traditional Okinawan dance, especially in the hands of women, negotiates cultural preservation and reinvention in a multicultural, postcolonial context. It argues that the female dancing body serves as both a site of intergenerational transmission and a symbol of diasporic resilience. By foregrounding issues of gender, migration, and performative memory, this paper contributes to transnational feminist discourse and the anthropology of performance.