First Steps in Japanese Dance
Or, how I met a tengū and survived
I had my first experience with Japanese dance, or Nihon buyō, in 1976. I was 20 and living in Fukuoka with my missionary parents. It was my second extended stay in Japan and the first one I remembered. My earliest trip was in 1956, when I was born on the kitchen table in Hoshiguma, an area of Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu. My parents were then just completing an eight-year tenure as missionaries and were preparing their return to the United States. In three weeks I was on the road with my mother and sisters and Japan was not even so much as a memory.
This second trip was longer — lasting for one year — and I was on the brink of adulthood. It made a lasting impression. And tied to that impression is my experience with buyō.
Lydia Barrows introduced me to dance. She was a “journeyman missionary,” newly graduated from college and sent to the mission field for a two-year term. Lydia was enthusiastic about taking part in all aspects of Japanese life. When a space opened up in the class where she was enrolled, she invited me to join, and I began taking lessons from the young dancer Yōko Ura.
We met in her aunt’s house, and after lessons often stayed for tea, sweets, and gossip in her tiny upstairs room. Once the weather grew cold we huddled around the heated kotatsu. As much as I enjoyed the practice, I relished these impromptu gab sessions.
Ura Sensei was an accomplished dancer in the Hanayagi School of buyō, the largest of the five main schools of dance. Normally, she would not have been allowed to take on students (until she had earned a particular license after considerable time and expense.) But the headmaster of Ura Sensei’s school allowed her to teach us. We were foreigners, after all. It was unlikely that we would ever rise in the rigid hierarchy of the traditional performing arts. No, it was impossible.
Teaching us as a hobby was not a threat to the institution. As long as Ura Sensei retained her perspective in the matter, she was allowed to take us in as pupils. Like so many of her generation, she was genuinely sincere in her wish to share her culture and her talents with those from other countries.
I learned three dances that year. I started with “Sakura” (Cherry blossom). Everyone starts with “Sakura.”
Lydia was ahead of me in her lessons. Ura Sensei taught her the more difficult “Kuroda bushi” or “Song of the Kuroda Samurai,” ostensibly a “drinking song” but one invested with the pride of Fukuoka samurai.
With her tall physique and graceful movements, Lydia was impressive when she danced.
We were both allowed to perform in the spring recital with other students in Ura Sensei’s school. Ura Sensei arranged for us to have our hair fixed in a Japanese style and had us both dressed in lovely kimonos.
Lydia wore a man’s hakama and a black montsuki or crested kimono. As I was to be the embodiment of spring, fluttering away like cherry blossoms, she dressed me in a lovely furisode kimono with long swaying sleeves. I carried an artificial branch of blossoming cherries on my shoulder.
That night, long after the excitement of the recital had faded, I was reluctant to brush my hair out. After all, I’d spent hours in the beauty salon having it teased and swept into a puffy momoware, the cleft peach coiffure suitable for young girls. Besides, it had been so heavily shellacked with hairspray, I think it would have taken even more hours to pry it loose.
I slept on it that way. Or tried to.
The next morning, I was scheduled to go with my Japanese language class to a small town outside Dazaifu to participate in a festival. Since I had my hair in a Japanese updo, it didn’t look right to put on my usual uniform of jeans and tee shirt.
I pulled out the kimono Mother had bought for me at the Iwataya Department Store in Tenjin (during a sale), and dressed myself in that.
(Learning how to wear, fold, and store kimono was part of our buyō lessons.)
And off I went to the festival.
I have to admit, I was a bit of a spectacle. But in a good way. The women complimented my sartorial choice, and the children tugged at my sleeves, pulling me here and there. I had so much fun I failed to remember the name of the shrine or the importance of the festival.
There is a photograph of me with a member of the festival dressed as a tengū, a mischievous supernatural creature who is sometimes part bird, sometimes part scoundrel, and always a braggart. Standing next to the tengū, with his red face and elongated nose, I wonder if people thought we looked kind of alike!
Dance practice makes an important appearance in my debut novel, The Kimono Tattoo, as does a tengū! For more on both, please take a look. The novel is available in print and e-book form and will soon be out as an audio book.
