Mina Sakai wanted to improve the status of her people and their self-esteem in a way that would also entertain ordinary people, not through a bookish history lecture that might lull them to sleep.
Over the past year, the 24-year-old Ainu woman from Obihiro, Hokkaido, has succeeded in an unconventional way in boosting public interest in the indigenous people, who are often subject to discrimination in what some people still tend to think of as an ethnically homogeneous society. She performs traditional Ainu dances and music mixed with rock and hip-hop.
At a concert in mid-November, Sakai and other members of the Ainu Rebels, who were often picked on at school because of their different physical appearance, performed in front of about 200 second-year students from Hanno High School in Saitama Prefecture, which invited the 16-member group as part of its human rights study program.