Hawaii Tribune-Herald Bon dance season on Big Island kicks off By KATIE YOUNG YAMANAKA Special to the Tribune-Herald When Leonard Chow was a kid, he would tag along to bon dances during the summer with his older cousins. “They would always ditch me to talk story with their friends or girlfriends,” he recalls. “So I would hang around by the musicians. The old guys would come ask me for help to move this or carry that up the ladder to the yagura (tower) where they played the music. I’d see them every weekend and eventually, they asked if I wanted to learn how to drum.” Chow, who joined the Hilo Bon Dance club at age 14 and has been its president since 1976, found a passion for drumming. “It was something different, like the heartbeat of the soul,” he says. “It’s something that reverberates inside you and you just feel alive.” Many of the club’s members have been active for almost 30 years. “Every summer we have a commitment and we know that,” says Chow, 62. “People stay in this club until they can’t even climb the ladder. Like my hanai Grandma used to say, ‘Go till no can go no more.’” The Hilo Bon Dance Club performs the live music at bon dances around the island with more than 14 engagements scheduled for this summer’s obon season between the months of June and August. He recalls that there was a time in the 1970s when bon dance events lost popularity. The same songs were played over and over again. “At one point it almost died,” Chow says. “The music was so boring and oldfashioned. It had no connection to the kids.” But Chow and others worked toward a more modern event. “There was a need for progressive change,” he says. “We brought music from the mainland and Oahu to revitalize the movement. And Hilo is different than other parts of the state. Our bon dances are rockin’!” remember See DANCE Page 9
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