50+ Years in the Dance Circle: Noriko Maxine Furubayashi of Salt Lake

Noriko Maxine Furubayashi (1921–2016) studied Japanese classical dance, was educated in Los Angeles and Kyoto, and taught Bon Odori at the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple for 70 years. 

In 1921, Noriko Maxine Hirano was born in Los Angeles, California, the first of three children to Kiyoshi and Kazuyo Hirano. Maxine studied Japanese classical dance and graduated from University High School in West Los Angeles in 1939. Fluent in both English and Japanese, she moved to Japan after high school and enrolled in the Kyoto Women’s University. 

Despite the chaos of World War II, Maxine continued her schooling and graduated in 1943. She lived with different aunts, uncles, and cousins in Japan, moving from village to village due to the air raids. With the end of the war and the arrival of Allied occupational forces, she worked as a translator for village police departments, taught conversational English, and later was employed by a phone company in Nagoya and the Yokohama Specie Bank. 

Maxine returned to the United States in 1947 and reunited with her family, who had moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, immediately before the mass incarceration of people of Japanese descent on the West Coast. She taught Japanese at the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple’s Japanese School and led Bon Odori beginning in 1947, at the request of Rev. Chonen Terakawa. She met Masato Jack Furubayashi on a blind date and the two were married in 1950. The couple had four children — Sandy, Glen, Mike, and Scott. 

Maxine Furubayashi taught dances such as “Bon Odori Uta,” “Bussei Koushinkyoku,” “Furusato Ondo,” “Hyakunen Zakura,” “Obon, Obon, It’s Festival Day,” and “Otsukimi Odori.” She coordinated dance selections with Aiko Hamada, Bon Odori instructor at the Buddhist Church of Ogden. 

As children, Maxine and Aiko had studied Japanese classical dance in the same studio in Los Angeles. The two rekindled their friendship in Utah and worked together for decades, learning and teaching dances at their respective temples.

In the 1970s, Maxine introduced Bon Odori such as “Ichi Tasu Ichi no Ondo,” “Shima no Blues,” and “Matsumoto Bon Bon” from Salt Lake City’s sister city. At the temple’s Obon, she would help prepare the food, dress the dancers, and lead Bon Odori from the inner circle. Maxine continued to teach and advise until her death in 2016 — an astonishing tenure of 70 years. 

Maxine’s daughter, Sandy Furubayashi Iwasaki, joined the Bon Odori teachers in 1969, and her grandchildren Emily and Michael Iwasaki are now teachers. For the Furubayashi and Hirano families, the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple’s Obon is a special opportunity to honor Noriko Maxine Furubayashi and to dance in her memory. 

To view a full list of 50+ teachers, follow the link: www.bit.ly/fiftyplusyears. If you have an additional dance instructor for the BCA Music Committee to consider, please email Wynn at wynnkiyama@gmail.com.

Wynn Kiyama lives in Honolulu, Hawai‘i with his family and is a member of the BCA and the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. He is currently working on a history of Bon Odori in the continental United States.