Santa Maria is poised to host a Japanese cultural celebration intended to share the past with the people of the present.

The Obon Festival is one of Japan’s oldest Buddhist celebrations, marking the time that it is believed the spirits of dead ancestors return to the Earth.

Obon festivals are held each year between June and August in Japan and Japanese communities throughout the world, with dates varying by location. The Guadalupe Buddhist Church has put on the local event for as long as Central Coast native Alice Utsunomiya, 71, can remember.

This year’s event, to be sponsored by the Guadalupe Buddhist Church, will take place from 12:30 to 5 p.m. July 22 at the Veteran’s Memorial Cultural Center, 313 W. Tunnel St. in Santa Maria. There is no cost for admission.

“It’s a gathering of joy,” said Utsunomiya. “To remember those who have gone before us ... appreciation for all the deeds that were done prior.”

It is also a time to consider the present.

“Obon is a time for self-reflection,” said Utsunomiya. “And that’s an important part of the Buddhist practice.”

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Utsunomiya serves as co-chairman of this year’s festival.

“The minute it’s over, I go and reserve the spot for the following year,” she said, explaining that organizing the Obon Festival is a year-long job.

For the festival, the Veteran’s Memorial Cultural Center is decorated with paper lanterns called chochins, along with pictures and drawings depicting the Japanese culture.

Traditional food further immerses visitors into the Japanese culture. Chicken dinners include a half chicken, a bowl of rice, edamame (soybeans) and a fortune cookie. Additionally, won tons, kushiyaki beef skewers, sushi and udon noodles are big sellers. “Last year, we ran out too soon,” said Utsunomiya.

Although Obon is a Japanese tradition, Santa Maria’s Obon Festival also reflects the diversity of the community. Strawberry shortcake, for example, makes for a top-selling dessert. “Which is not a tradition,” said Utsunomiya. “But we are in the Santa Maria Valley.”

Also not entirely Japanese, the Oasis Ukulele Band, made up of more than 20 senior citizens from Orcutt, will perform at the festival for the first time, playing classic oldies from the 1950s and ’60s on their ukuleles.

But other pieces of the festival will impart much Japanese heritage. An origami table offers Japanese crafts for sale, a bonsai demonstration will offer instruction on clipping the plants, and a karate demonstration will show off martial arts.

Taiko drummers from Oxnard are an annual highlight of the event. “They’ve been coming for years, and people love them,” said Utsunomiya.

But the most significant event at the festival is the Bon Odori, a traditional Japanese dance.

The slow, methodical dance involves participants wearing colorful kimonos and carrying fans and kachi kachi castanets while performing coordinated steps and arm movements to the calculated beat of taiko drums. Nearly 30 dancers have been practicing for six weeks to perform the Bon Odori at this year’s festival.

“It’s not a dance of happiness, but a dance of joy,” said Utsunomiya. “That’s why we open it to the public.”

Traditionally, during the last dance, called the “Coal Miner’s Dance,” festival attendees enter the dance circle to join in the movements.

“Everybody that has come to the Obon Festival, they love it,” said Utsunomiya.

Utsunomiya herself taught the dancing for about 30 years beginning in 1968. Today, the daughters of her former students have begun dancing.

“It was so nice to see the ones I taught bring their daughters to enjoy the dancing,” said Utsunomiya after attending a recent rehearsal.