Eisa (dance)
Eisa (Okinawan: エイサー, romanized: Eisā) is a folk dance originating from Okinawa Island in Japan.
Modern Eisa is danced by 20 to 30 young men or women, mainly in doubled lines or circles to the accompaniment of singing, chanting, and drumming by the dancers as well as by folk songs played on the sanshin.
Meiji era newspaper articles used various forms including yensaa (イェンサー), yaisaa (ヤイサー), and ensaa (エンサー).
The Ryūkyū-koku yuraiki (1713) attributes the introduction of nembutsu to Taichū (1552–1639), a Jōdo sect monk from Mutsu Province.
According to the record, he translated Buddhist teaching into the vernacular speech and taught it to the people of Naha during the reign of Shō Nei.
Other sources confirm that Taichū stayed in the capital region for three years in the early 1600s and converted the king and other high-ranking officials.
The fact that their origin had been obscured by the early 18th century suggests that they came from mainland Japan a long time ago.
According to an oral tradition, Eisa was introduced to Kamiyama, Ginowan in the Meiji period, when a wealthy farmer invited performers from Shuri and made them teach Bon dance to young villagers.
Several communities in northern Okinawa believe that Eisa was introduced from Sesoko, Motobu, a supplying center of seasonal workers.
In 1956, then under U.S. occupation, the first Zentō Eisa Contest was held in Koza (part of the modern-day Okinawa City).
It was originally an effort to recover from the great damage to the base-dependent commercial city caused by the "Off Limits" ordinance by the U.S. military.
As a contest, participating groups were judged by screening criteria such as costumes, formation, technique, the number of performers, and innovativeness.
[1] In modern Okinawa, Eisa has gradually changed itself into popular entertainment by incorporating non-Buddhist folk songs and by adding visually appealing choreography although the Eisa dance still began with nembutsu songs such as Mamauya Ninbuchi, Chōja nu Nagari (長者の流れ), and Yamabushi (山伏).
Yukio Kobayashi, a researcher of Okinawan folk songs, identifies four forms of Eisa:[1] Kobayashi analyzes modern Eisa as a result of the effort by each community's newly organized youth associations, an influence from sophisticated theatrical performance of Naha, and a social movement of modernization that forced young people to turn from "sexually explicit" gatherings to the "healthy" dance.
[7] Creative Eisa has also been exported internationally to virtually anywhere with sizeable Okinawan populations, such as Hawaiʻi, the continental United States, and South America.
