Bennington College Community Celebrates Inaugural Bon Dance Festival

Guests included Bennington College students, faculty, and staff; the Japanese department from Union College; local families; more than a dozen Japanese families from the Albany area; and a 5th grade Japanese language class from the Village School of North Bennington.

“Our vision for this project was for it to truly be as multidisciplinary and community-oriented as possible,” said Sophia Hemmen ’26, who organized the event as a part of her advanced work in Japanese. “As a student who is not of Japanese descent, but who has spent years studying Japanese language, culture, and translation, I approached this project with a strong sense of responsibility and self-awareness. My goal was never to simplify or detach Bon Odori from its cultural roots, but rather to help create an invitation for an unfamiliar audience while honoring the traditions and community-centered spirit at its core.”

Bon Dance is traditionally part of Obon, a summer festival in Japan when people gather to honor and remember their ancestors through music, dance, and community. It can be compared with Día de los Muertos (or Day of the Dead), which is celebrated in Mexico. 

“Both are about honoring loved ones and ancestors who came before us,” Hemmen wrote in the materials for the event. “So yes, this is a festival about remembrance... but also about dancing in a big circle with your friends, your faculty members, and maybe a few people you’ve never met before.”

The project grew out of the Bon Dance course taught by Ikuko Yoshida and Mina Nishimura, and co-taught by Nat Fredrickson ’26 and Hemmen. Students from the course acted as dance leaders by guiding participants through traditional Bon Odori in an engaging, accessible way. 

“When I first began this project, I truly knew almost nothing about Bon Odori. The process of educating myself—through my own research and through the guidance and experience of our lead faculty member, Mina Nishimura—was both humbling and deeply rewarding,” said Hemmen. “I am incredibly honored to have shared the responsibility of teaching the cultural significance of Bon Dance to our core group of students and to help bring this festival to life.”  

Hemmen translated the songs students learned, researched their cultural and historical contexts, shared the information to the Bon Dance class throughout the term, and presented it into posters and pamphlets for festival attendees.

But the festival was ultimately a team effort. Visual arts and linguistics students collaborated to create zines and informational pamphlets exploring the cultural elements of Bon Dance. Music and dance students worked together to perform the festival songs and designed a non-traditional yagura, or central performance structure. And Isabella Cohn ’26, a visual arts student who works at Wing & A Prayer Farm in Shaftsbury, VT, worked to hand-dye Tenugui cloths, a traditional multi-purpose Japanese hand towel, using the traditional Japanese Shibori technique.   

“We also partnered with Purple Carrot Farm to develop the menu, including vegetables used in the poke bowls that were harvested the morning of the event,” said Hemmen. 

“Bon Dance has long served as a celebration of regional identity, collective memory, and community connection,” said Hemmen. “In bringing this festival to Bennington, I hoped we could honor that spirit by creating something that felt rooted in our own community as well—inviting people together across disciplines, backgrounds, and generations to celebrate the creativity, joy, and multiculturalism that make this place so special.”

Hemmen will archive the event in Crossett Library with the goal of creating a blueprint that could support the Bon Dance Festival in becoming an annual event at Bennington.