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Dances of Memory, Dances of Oblivion: The Politics of Performance in Contemporary Okinawa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Christopher T. Nelson
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As in Roberson's analysis of popular songs, Christopher T. Nelson shows how memories of war shape popular culture in Okinawa today—in Nelson's case in the context of community-based dance performances known as eisā. Today eisā is the most widespread and widely recognized community activity practiced in contemporary Okinawa. The Koza Riot that Nelson refers to occurred during the evening of December 20-21, 1970, in what was then a red light district caering primarily to American military personnel outside Kadena Air Force Base. The rioting was precipitated by an incident in which a car driven by an intoxicated American soldier struck an Okinawan man. Efforts by U.S. Military Police to extricate the soldier in question sparked eight hours of street fighting between hundreds of MPs and thousands of local Okinawan residents, resulting in dozens of injuries and large-scale property damage. Most observers interpreted the Koza Riot as an expression of widespread simmering resentment among the local population against the U.S. military presence.

Type
Part II: Contemporary Okinawan Society and Culture
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Special Issue S12: Course Reader No. 12. Putting Okinawa at the Center , January 2014 , pp. 196 - 215
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

References

Notes

1 Here I am thinking of Judith Butler's recent work on melancholy and the constitutive role that the internalization of loss has in the construction of the self. While I find Butler's argument about the repression of the originary experience of homosexual desire compelling, I would like to broaden this category of melancholy objects to include other forms of internalized historical experience. See Judith Butler, “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identifications” in The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection, 132-150.

2 Michael S. Molasky, The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa (London: Routledge, 1999); Norma Field, In the Realm of the Dying Emperor (New York: Vintage Books, 1993); Gerald Figal, “Waging Peace in Okinawa” Critical Asian Studies 33 (March 2001).

3 The Okinawan bases do continue to generate revenue in the form of payments made to landowners who either voluntarily lease their land to the Japanese government or are compelled to do so. This land is then provided for use by American military forces.

4 Like the hansen jinushi [antiwar landlords] who testified at the prefectural hearing, many of the residents of Sonda continue to own land within the US bases; however, like most Okinawan landowners, very few are active in oppositional organizations such as the hansen jinushi.

5 Young men and women spend a great deal of time together, but rehearsals are controlled and there is little free time. Occasionally relationships emerge, and a number of couples that I know have married. Many others date people from work or school with no connection to the seinenkai. Surprisingly, there seem to be few relationships with the admiring mainland visitors who attend rehearsals and performances.

6 Although women have danced in the seinenkai for decades, they have never become drummers or sanshin musicians. While local women professed to be content with this, several complained that it was difficult for women to socialize at the community center once they stop performing.

7 The Ballad of the Southern Grove, The Chunjun River Flows, and Kudaka Island, respectively.

8 Kinjō Kaoru, cited in Nomura Kōya, Muishiki no Shokuminchishugi: Nihonjin no Beigun Kichi to Okinawajin (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō, 2005) Note 128, page 175-177.

9 For an interesting discussion of the desire to be seen among Japanese youth, see Ikuya Sato, Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

10 Iha Masakazu, “Kando o Hada de Shiru,” in Eisa 360°: Rekishi to Genzai. 306.