Adrienne Reiko Iwanaga

Adrienne Reiko Iwanaga Download Audio Transcript John Floridis: Welcome. This podcast is part of a series highlighting the 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellows, recipients of the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts. I'm John Floridis. For this podcast, we're going to visit with teacher, performer, preserver, and cultural ambassador of Obon Odori, Adrienne Reiko Iwanaga. Obon Odori is a centuries old Japanese folk dance rooted in the Buddhist traditions of communal gathering to honor and celebrate the memory of ancestors. Perhaps the best summation of the spirit and the intent of the dance is “Because of y ou I am.” Reiko was born in San Jose, California in 1938. When she was 4 y ears old, Reiko and her family were incarcerated in a relocation center in Colorado. It was there that she began her lessons in Odori Dance, which is derived from perhaps the more well-known dance form of Kabuki. Several y ears later, the family made the transition away from the center and back into mainstream American society, and Reiko continued her studies in dance, culminating with intense training and certification, in Notori dance, a more formal art form. In the subseq

Cancel anytime · CA$99/month