On Sunday, Kingston Point Beach will host a festival celebrating Japanese culture and calling for an end to nuclear weapons and power. The 13th annual Bon-Odori Dance Festival for Peace will run from noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 6 — the 78th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

The festival is the brainchild of Youko Yamamoto, owner of Tanma Ramen on Broadway, who grew up in Hiroshima and witnessed firsthand the devastating lingering effects of the bombing on survivors. Bon is a traditional Japanese summertime festival honoring ancestors with decorated alters, special treats and a traditional “loop dance” — the “Bon Odori” — through the streets. At her last restaurant, Gomen Kudasai in New Paltz, she would mark “Hiroshima Day” with a small ceremony honoring the victims attended by a few friends and staff.

The idea for a larger, more public event came after Japan suffered another nuclear disaster, the 2011 destruction of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant by a tsunami.

“After Fukushima I thought, this is not enough, we have to do more, we have to raise awareness,” said Yamamoto.

Inspired by one of her regulars, a member of the renowned Vanaver Caravan world dance troupe, Yamamoto decided to use Bon-Odori as a way to honor victims and raise awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. The event also serves as a showcase of Japanese culture featuring traditional music and dance and Japanese sweets and festival foods.

“Bon-Odori is about community-based summer fun,” said Yamamoto. “And [the peace festival] is taking that as platform to spread the word for no nukes, no war.”

This year, the festival will feature guest speakers, representatives from the Grafton Peace Pagoda and Peace Action New York and two Buddhist priests who will lead the commemoration ceremony. The event will also feature “Light of Hiroshima.” The Light of Hiroshima is an eternal flame kindled from embers of a family bookstore in the devastated city and kept by the family of a Japanese solider for generations before it was discovered and widely publicized by a reporter for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. Since then, flames lit by the fire have spread around the world as symbols of peace. The flame will be used to light lanterns in a traditional ceremony to close the festival.

The festival coincides not only with the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but the release of the blockbuster film Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s gripping biopic about “The Father of the Atomic Bomb,” Robert Oppenheimer. Yamamoto said she believes the film and more importantly the war raging the Ukraine have brought renewed attention to the threat of nuclear war; something she hopes will translate into a wider audience for her message of peace.

“There’s more awareness that nuclear weapons are no joke, this isn’t Atomic Café time,” said Yamamoto, referring to the classic camp documentary on the early days of nuclear energy and the Cold War. “People are starting to ask, after everything that’s happened, why are we still doing this?”