Chapter 3 — In Honor of women’s History Month: Machi Ito
I owe who I am and my career to my mother, Machi Ito.
Not only was she an artist and journalist, but one of the first women to work as a film director for a TV network, in her case, for Nippon TV Network, the first commercial television network in Japan. In those days it was rare for a woman to work as an artist, let alone in the newspaper and broadcast industries. Her incredible resilience and strength saw her through difficult times. Reflecting on my childhood fifty years later, her career provided me an example for me to follow when it came time for me to face my own challenges, although I did not realize it when I was young.
My mother was thirteen years old when the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred in 1923. Among the 142,800 people who died were her father and several other relatives. Only she and her mother survived, along with a small portion of the family estate. She was in Tokyo for the duration of World War II, and saw much of the destruction of war firsthand, including the Bombing of Tokyo in 1945. The war left my mother with a lifelong dislike of sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes were the only food she could find when her family was forced out of Tokyo and into the countryside to avoid bombing runs. For my mother, the sweet potato came to symbolize war, which she was against. A dedicated pacifist, she was even thrown in prison for delivering anti-war flyers.
After the war, Japan endured a food crisis, as inefficient allocation of resources and reduced crop yields led to widespread hunger. Each rice ball was a treasure. She told me how angry she was when a rice ball that she had finally received after waiting on the food line for hours was snatched from the hands of my oldest brother by a stranger. This enemy was not an American combatant but another human being, who was also fighting to survive—one of the sad truths in any war.
After the war, she married, but her marriage ended in divorce. My mother had wanted to pursue a career as a painter but had to give up her dream to raise her three children—my two older brothers and me—on her own, as well as support and care for her mother. Perhaps, in giving up her brush, she entrusted me with her dream, which allowed me to pursue my own of performing and teaching in the United States. In turning away from her artistic aspirations, she embarked on a trailblazing professional career.
Roses by Machi Ito
My mother worked for the Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper during the 1940s. In 1951, its founder, Matsutaro Shoriki, founded the Nippon TV Network and requested that my mother transfer to this new enterprise.
I remember that my brothers and I were so excited to see the television set in our home that my oldest brother started doing cartwheels on the tatami floor.
Since broadcasting was in its infancy, it was not easy to recruit participants for TV shows. So, as a family member of the network staff, I was requested to appear in a couple of the early programs. I remember sitting at a round table in the television studio. Wardrobe had dressed me in a yellow dress for filming, which was then given to me to keep as a reward.
My mother’s field of work was making documentaries for the education department of Nippon Television. It seemed to me that the male colleagues she worked with, such as cameramen, musicians, recorders, and narrators, respected her highly, more than other women at that time in Japan. She was very capable “despite” being a woman!
Obituary titled “A Pioneer of Women Directors” in the Nippon TV Network Newsletter (2001)
During my elementary school days, my mother’s work schedule kept us apart, as she was either on location filming around the country or editing into the wee hours of the night.
Late one night, a few months after I had started taking dance lessons, my mother came quietly over to the futon where I was sleeping and placed a dance fan case next to my pillow. I slipped my head under the futon cover, overcome with a huge sense of gratitude. You see, unlike the parents of my friends at the dance studio, my mother did not exactly approve of my decision to study Nihon Buyo. She considered it to be too old-fashioned for her anti-establishment views. Yet, she still got a precious gift for me, acquiescing to my choice without saying a word.
She was a most progressive woman. She simply smiled as I studied hard to take the entrance exam for a very competitive high school. For the “baby boomer” students in Japan in those days, entrance to a desired school was not easy. The school I was aiming for was strong in English education, a missionary school staffed by American teachers. (Learning English as a tool of communication was necessary for me as I wanted to introduce and talk about Japanese dance to the world outside of Japan.) However, my mother said that getting high scores on an exam was not a real education, nor was the system of giving grades in art classes. Even without her encouragement, I got into the high school of my choice.
It was not until my high school days that I was told the truth about her divorce and my father’s alcoholism. My two brothers got into a horrible fight, a war between capitalism and socialism, with each brother arguing about which system was correct according to their own ideals. As they threw chairs and tables around the room and at each other, my mother burst into tears. It was the only time I witnessed her in emotional tears; the fight had triggered traumatic memories she kept deep inside.
Up until then, my father was non-existent in my life, and I never asked about him. She told us how much he drank and how he went bankrupt, which inspired a hatred of those who drank heavily. Her intense dislike of alcohol sometimes affected my life: In the early 1990s, an old friend, whom I dated during the 1980s, and I bumped into each other on the street while my mother was visiting me in New York. He wanted to meet my mother very much, but she declined his special dinner invitation because she suspected he had a drinking habit. Unfortunately, and sadly for me, that was the last I ever spoke with him.
My father’s alcoholism was the cause of my parents’ divorce. He abandoned the family when I was very small, leaving my mother in enormous debt. I remember when red tags, the labels of repossession, were placed on our kimono chests and other furniture. My grandmother was crying when people from the creditors came to collect our belongings. Although I was only four or five years old and had no idea what was really going on, I could sense that it was not the money grandma was crying about, but something else. It was for the disgrace of the Ito family. Her great grandfather had served the Shogunate with excellent swordsmanship, but now, the honor of the Ito family was lost. I also remember a scene when my mother left the lawyer’s office, after the repossession incident. With three children in hand she said, “We don’t have money to buy tomorrow’s food.”
Indeed, it is said, “mothers are strong,” but mine was exceptionally so. I cannot imagine the depth of her sadness and the weight of her burden as she struggled to feed her three children and her mother with no money. She was determined to survive. To provide for us, she took various jobs as a writer for radio stations and newspapers.
At Nippon Television, she used to be called Kenka no Ito Obachan or “Ito Auntie, the Fighter,” although she would call herself Nittere no Komachi, or “Nippon TV Komachi.” Ono no Komachi was a famous poetess of medieval Japan and is considered to be one of the most beautiful women in Japanese history. Her name has become a nickname given to particularly beautiful women. Whenever my mother referred to herself thusly, I or anyone else would look at her face and smile.
My mother was a woman of strong personality. She had a quick temper but was also quick to forget. I must confess, I sometimes think to myself, “Am I her daughter? We are so different.”
She was a passionate woman and never lost her curiosity as an artist to truly see the things and people around her, regardless of whether they were strangers or not.
On the other hand, she had a critical eye for many things, including for herself. After she walked away from painting, she refused to pick up her brush again. It made me sad that she never wanted to paint again, even though I offered her canvases and easels at my New York studio whenever she visited.
The 17th (Kimono), 18th (Mother), and 19th (Flower and a Person) Nikakei Exhibit Postcards by Machi Ito
I also regret that I could not choreograph dances to the poems she wanted me to during her lifetime. The poet Sato Haruo translated the work of several Chinese poetesses into Japanese and published the anthology under the title Shajinshu in 1929, and it was one of her favorite volumes. In 2013, I was finally able to create dances to some of these poems in collaboration with Yong Hung Jia of the Peking Opera for my Salon Series No. 47. How much I wish that my mother could have seen this program, regardless of my poor dancing, for Yong was such a beautiful singer and actress and gave a wonderful interpretation of the poems! All the more, the Japanese melody that I asked her to incorporate into her performance sounded perfect.
I love reading my mother’s film scripts. The Pastor in Tsuwano City; Spring Light at Mt. Hakkoda, about woodblock artist Munakata Shiko; Hokuhen Niwa (Two Stories from the North), about the Ainu and the poet Ishikawa Takuji; have such a humane, heart touching quality to them. In the last film, one scene featuring a reading of Takuji’s Ichiaku no Suna, one of the most famous poems of the turn of the last century, often brings me to tears.
In the summer of 2023, I gave a special Kabuki Dance workshop to the current students at my studio. I wanted to keep a record of my instruction, since the workshops for dance majors at colleges in the spring went very well, while on the other hand, I was feeling low on energy. At the end of the workshop, I talked as I often do about Ichigo/Ichie (one time/one meeting), a Japanese saying that means that any encounter happens only once in our lives. As I spoke, I felt compelled to tell my students, “It’s incredible to see you all as my students. If I had not kept asking my mother for dance lessons, if my mother had not allowed me to go to the dance studio 68 years ago, I would never have met you, and we wouldn’t be together here and now.” Then I was overcome by a rush of emotions shed a few tears . . . so did some of the senior students.
I can still remember the late afternoon sunlight when I was begging her to take dance lessons, shaking her shoulder. Her “Yes” did not come until many months later. I can see my six-year-old self, commuting to the dance studio and coming home from lessons on the train during rush hour. Back then, passengers were packed into trains like sardines into a tin, and I was surrounded by people. Suddenly, I found myself on someone’s shoulder: a middle-aged man in a suit. As he was picking me up, he said in a loud voice to those around us, “Oh, this little girl will be crushed!”
It seems that who I am now has been helped by all these miracles—by encounters with other human beings, by the kindness they extended to me; and by my mother, who was my first and the biggest miracle. As I said in Chapter 2, there are occurrences and chances that never become a chain of events, but there are those chances that become a chain of life’s events—because of that and because of this. I was able to make an incredible journey thanks to my mother. I am proud to share our story with you as we honor Women’s History Month.
Machi Ito’s film, Kyo no Shimabara (Shimabara in Kyoto) with English subtitles can be viewed on my website, dancejapan.com or through this direct link: https://youtu.be/r6ZO41N8vkQ)
The posting of this chapter to JapanCulture-NYC.com was paid for by Sachiyo Ito and reprinted here with her permission. Susan Miyagi McCormac of JapanCultureNYC, LLC edited this chapter for grammatical purposes only and did not write or fact-check any information. For more information about Sachiyo Ito and Company, please visit dancejapan.com. ©Sachiyo Ito. All rights reserved.
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