The Ainu people are considered to be indigenous. To this day, there is still a small native population of them living in Hokkaidō, an island in the northern part of Japan. Ainu people have for centuries fostered good relations with the gods through rituals and ceremonies, during which they sing songs and perform dances to them. These are not only a form of entertainment for them, but also a way to express honor, respect, and gratitude to the deities that are found in nature. One of the dances known is The Ainu Dance, which centered on the worship of spirit deities or Kamui in the Japanese-Ainu language. The majority of Japanese deities are associated with animals, such as the bear, owl, and turtle, which were all considered significant by the ancient Japanese.
In the traditional style, dancers are often accompanied by onlookers who sing without musical instruments. Various dances imitate the calls and movements of animals and insects; some, like the sword and bow dances, are rituals; and others, like the show dances, are purely entertainment. These dances are performed at ceremonies, banquets, as part of newly organized cultural festivals, and privately in everyday life.
The stories that are performed by the dancers are mostly based on animals or the lifestyle of the Ainu people. These include the birds dance (chikap rimse), which portrays a flock of birds flying in the sky, as well as the whale dance (fumpenere), which tells the story of a time when the tribe celebrated and shared whale meat for a feast. In the fumpenere, a woman finds a sickly whale who beached itself on the shore. They believed the whale was a blessing from their gods, and they began to butcher the whale for everyone to share. The story was turned into dance movements meant to pray for a plentiful hunt for everyone in the village every time it was performed. The symbolic act of Ainu dance also plays a central role in some formal ceremonies like Iyomante, where the participants send the deity embodied in a bear they ate back to heaven by mimicking what they saw a live bear do. Throughout all of the existence of Ainu dance, a common theme has been the acknowledgment of life, society, work, and community in Ainu people.
As with many other forms of cultural dance, the movements and themes of the Ainu dance are unique to each region. However, many have been lost or forgotten over time, despite its importance as one of the most ancient forms of dance in Japan. Nowadays, the Ainu population is considered scarce. Approximately 80% of the current population came from mixed cultures, which means that there are very few people who celebrate the original culture and traditions of the Ainu. The elderly population of Japan helped to bring to the public's attention the music and dance traditions of the Ainu, but as that generation progressively died out, so did the memories and cultural lessons.
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