August; Obon Dance

August — Obon Dance presents the summer festival of the dead — when the spirits of ancestors return to visit the living — through the communal bon-odori dancing that was its central celebratory form. The Obon dance, performed in circles around a central platform or tower, with participants in summer yukata moving in the coordinated patterns of traditional regional dances, provided Mori with a subject of considerable visual energy and deeply embedded cultural significance. The festival united religious observance with communal pleasure in a way characteristic of Japanese popular spiritual life.