Great Leap invites you......
Rooted in culturally-based sustainability practices, FandangObon honors the balance between Mother Earth and humanity by bringing together communities into one circle through participatory music and dance. We will open the festival with a ceremony to acknowledge grief, healing, and repair that we all need. We invite you to come to the space with an open heart!
We are excited to come together and share Japanese obon, Mexican Son Jarocho, rhythms from Guinea and Mali and the live premiere of our newest collaobration "OKAERI ONDO" celebrating Queer and Trans resiliency. This event is open to the public and free of charge. Everyone is welcome to join– no music or dance experience is necessary.
Join the Little Tokyo procession! We’ll gather outside the Nijiya Market at 2:30 pm and walk together at 2:45 pm to JANM.
Great Leap’s FandangObon is sponsored in part by:
WHAT IS FANDANGOBON?
Great Leap’s FandangObon (FO) convenes into one circle to include participatory music and dance traditions of Fandango of Vera Cruz, Mexico rooted in African, Mexican, and indigenous music; Japanese Buddhist Obon circle dances in remembrance of ancestors; and West African dance and drums of Nigeria and New Guinea. In past years we have also built with folks from within the Sufi Muslim practices such as Hadrah.
ORIGINS: Quetzal Flores & Dr. Martha Gonzalez of QUETZAL, Grammy-award winning band, has helped spread the Fandango throughout the U.S.. Great Leap’s Nobuko Miyamoto has composed contemporary Obon pieces danced by over 10,000 people yearly at Obon Festivals in Southern California. Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble and Le Ballet Dembaya take West African dance into schools and communities throughout LA.
Hundreds of folks of all ages and cultures will celebrate connections to each other and Mother Earth. The exemplary work of FandangObon was presented at the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s “Sounds of California in Washington DC on the National Mall in July 2016.”