SACHIYO ITO’S MEMOIR: CHAPTER 10
This year renowned dancer, dance educator, and choreographer Sachiyo Ito has been serializing her memoir on JapanCulture•NYC with monthly installments, each chapter revealing a different aspect of her early life in Tokyo and career in New York City.
Ito offers of a profound exploration of the experience of dedicating herself to traditional Japanese dance at an early age, arriving in New York City during the tumultuous ‘70s, and making a successful career in the arts. Each chapter offers a glimpse into the complexities that shaped her journey. It is a literary examination of not only Ito Sensei’s life, but of how New York City’s culture evolved over the decades and what sacrifices one must make to achieve a thriving career in the arts.
The memoir is an invitation to delve into the layers of a creative life and career that has spanned more than 50 years. As a work in progress, it is also an invitation for you to offer your feedback. Your insights will contribute to the evolution of this extraordinary work.
To read all the chapters, please click here. For more information about Sachiyo Ito, please visit her website, dancejapan.com.
The Cranes
“Yume (Dream), the closing piece for this program, is a remarkable signature piece for Ms. Ito’s dancing and acting. It is a poem in movement and truly shows the wide range of Ms. Ito’s knowledge and abilities.”
In Chapters 6 and 7, I explored the theme of transformation through dance. In Chapter 7, I discussed a transformation from a beautiful being into an ugly one: the lovely maiden turning into a hideous snake in the Dojoji story. But what about transformations going the other way, from the mundane to the ephemeral – like in a dream, where you trade your arms for wings and fly?
Birds hold a universal fascination for mankind. They are depicted in poetry, painting, and song across cultures. We watch them in their migrations, knowing as they fly overhead that the season is about to change. In the West, the official bird of October is the swan. In Japan, the birds that represent elegance and quintessential beauty are also waterfowl: the tsuru (crane) and sagi (heron). They are highly valued for their purity of color and the graceful sweep of their wings in flight. Another bird that is prevalent in Japanese art is the white-fronted goose, often depicted flying through the skies of autumnal paintings.
In the Kabuki dance Azuma Hakkei (The Eight Beauties in the East), geese become messengers of love when a character in the dance entrusts them with his love letter. What an enchanting idea it is! In another Kabuki dance, Fuji Musume (Wisteria Maiden), geese play an important role. At the end of the dance, the lyrics of the music describe the flight of the geese in the twilight sky:
空も霞の夕照りに
名残惜しむ帰る雁がねThe sky is hazy and the evening light is glowing,
the geese return home reluctantly.
We are left with a lovely and memorable image, an appropriate farewell to the end of the dance. The words “returning geese” make me wonder where they are going as I raise a hand to view them. Is this gesture a metaphor for two lovers returning to their home?
Hiroshige ukiyo-e painting in Omi Hakkei
As I child, I used to dream of flying. I was not transformed into a winged bird, but into Ten’nyo, the angelic figure depicted on the ceiling of Todai-ji Temple in Nara. There are many ways to analyze the psychology of flying dreams, but the only premise that resonates with me is that of freedom.
When I was young, I did not carry the pressures and worries that I do as an adult. My subconscious, unencumbered by responsibilities, must have taken flight very easily. Since then, I have loved “the flying in dancing,” whether classical, Kabuki dances, or my own works.
I choreographed flight in Chieko: The Element, the dance I created based on the work Chieko-sho (Collection of Poems for Chieko) by Kotaro Takamura. In one of the poems in the collection, “Lemon Elegy,” there is a line: “Chieko flies!” I had my singers sing this in a high-pitched voice, almost like an exclamation. In Chieko’s case, flying was a metaphor for leaping into a realm of insanity. I envisioned my own movements as that of a white bird, flying into the black space beyond the stage, the darkness of the theater becoming a spiritual world separated from reality. I believe that Kotaro wanted to express that Chieko found release from the worries and responsibilities she carried as a woman, wife, and artist in her flight. In doing so, he placed her on an eternal pedestal; in another poem, he expressed, “Chie-san, you are young forever.”
Other expressions of emancipation can be found in dances and plays in the genre of Kyoran-mono (the insanity pieces) in Kabuki plays, in which the protagonist loses his mind. My favorite is Onatsu Kyoran (Onatsu the Insane), the famous work created by Tsubouchi Shoyo in 1914. I performed it at Pace University Theater in 2004. This performance was a dream come true for me. Not only was I able to invite Shogo Fujima, a renowned dancer, to come to New York from Japan as a guest artist, but I was able to rent the exact same costumes from the original production from the Shochiku Kabuki Costume Shop.
While the portrayal of an insane character may suggest frenzy and ugliness in Western theater, in Japanese classical theater, an otherworldly, ephemeral beauty is a hallmark of insanity. I often think that we dancers are very fortunate to be able to transform ourselves into such characters.
Sagi Musume (The Heron Maiden) at Mitsukoshi Theater, Tokyo
The first Kabuki dance I performed that was inspired by birds was Sagi Musume (The Heron Maiden) at Mitsukoshi Theater in Tokyo in 1968. Beloved from its first presentation in 1761, Sagi Musume has been recreated many times. The mystery of whether the heroine is a woman or a heron unfolds as she moves from joy to despair, before suffering her final fate in Hell. The white color of the heron suggests the innocence of a young lady before she experiences the turbulent emotions of a love affair, while the snow functions as a metaphor for both purity and the fleetingness of love as it melts away. The weight of the heroine’s thoughts is reflected in the heaviness of the snowfall, amplifying the drama of the Hell scene at the end, as the snow falls on the suffering heron. Since then, I have performed this piece numerous times in the U.S., and the long white sleeves and trailing hem of the costume have turned gray from brushing the floors of so many stages.
Performing Sagi Musume for Japan Society. Photo by Thomas Haar
My first original work with birds as a theme was Crane, which I presented at the 25th anniversary concert celebrating my American debut. This dance was inspired by one of my greatest supporter’s love for the red-crowned crane, one of Japan’s most beloved animals. I met Mary Griggs Burke at the celebration of her 75th birthday in 1991, which also commemorated her acquisition of a painting of a scene from Ibaraki, a well-known dance drama in Noh and Kabuki.
With Mrs. Burke at the post-performance reception of the 25th anniversary concert in 1997
The theme of the painting was a transformation of an old woman to a demon, so I created an infernal dance, accompanied by two dancers from my company. I had fractured my foot a few days before the performance, but knowing that the show must go on, I danced regardless and did not let anyone know of my injury until after the evening was over. You can imagine Mrs. Burke’s surprise when she found out after the party.
Crane. Photo by Kathy Sturgeon
Over the following years, Mrs. Burke’s support for my work was very important. After the 25th anniversary concert, held at Florence Gould Hall in 1997, she held a very special reception and tea ceremony at her residence for my guests.
Mrs. Burke was also a supporter of both the International Crane Foundation in the U.S. and the Japanese Crane Foundation. With her love of these beautiful birds combined with her love of Japanese art, she amassed a fabulous collection of screens depicting cranes from the Edo era, created by artists in the Rinpa school of painting.
When the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin held a celebration for her 80th birthday in 1996, I was invited. I was thrilled to create another crane dance, this time based on the folktale Yuzuru (Twilight Crane). It was a magical evening. I had a special crane costume made with one white, sheer sleeve designed in the shape of a wing. In the story, the heroine first appears as a woman, although her true form is a crane. In the end, she returns to her avian form. I wanted to represent the character’s half-humanness to the audience with the sleeves’ one wing – to capture the essence of being caught between two worlds. The entire outdoor stage was dark but for a single bright streak of light. I felt as if I were entering a void in the darkness of that space, about to step into an infinite universe at the end of the dance.
Two decades later, in the installment of the Salon Series that introduced Japanese folk tales, I choreographed another Twilight Crane, accompanied by a flute and an ancient koto. Inspired by a Chinese Opera costume, I had the special sleeves designed as wings for my costume. I also invited a weaver to the program. After giving a demonstration of weaving on her loom, the same type used by the crane in the story, she became a part of the performance by being cast as a shadow. In the original tale, the crane, living as a human, secretly pulls out her feathers to make a beautiful fabric that her husband can sell in the market. I was very fortunate to be able to borrow the weaver’s piece of fabric to use as that woven by the crane. At the end of the piece, the wing-sleeves became large as I spread them, affecting a farewell gesture as the heroine departs the earth, abandoning her life as a human to return to her true form as a crane.
In 2008, I created a dance of cranes for a trio set to a modern koto composition by Sawai Tadao, Tori no Yohni (Just Like Birds), for dance students at Stephens College, where I was a visiting professor. These pieces were choreographed in a contemporary rather than a classical style. I was extremely happy with the result as the students, all trained ballet and modern dancers, performed so beautifully. It was also a lot of fun to go to local stores and choose fabric for costumes with the director of the costume department. I was very lucky to be invited to teach at a college that has such well-established and longstanding theater and dance departments. They make every effort to create the best college production possible and present them with great pride.
One of my most poignant performances came in October 2020. Salon Series No. 67: Prayer for Healing and Peace once more featured cranes as the central theme. In Japan, cranes are the symbol of longevity, healing, and happiness. Over the course of that spring and summer, we had watched the world come to a halt, overcome by disease. In spite of the pandemic, I decided to present the program. Of course, the circumstances of the lockdown necessitated that the performance had to be livestreamed, a first for my company.
As a prayer for the victims of COVID, I offered the dances Dedication, and Seiten no Tsuru (Cranes in the Blue Sky), performed by two of my dancers and me. The program also featured an origami demonstration by Colin McNally, whom I met during my Free Children’s Workshop program. Among the schools where I gave workshops in 2019 was the Beginning with Children Charter School in Brooklyn, where I taught Mr. McNally’s students. In 2020, hearing that he and his class had completed the senbazuru project, or one thousand folded paper cranes, I invited him to participate in the Salon Series program. Folding one thousand paper cranes has come to invoke well wishes of healing and recovery for those who are ill.
Mr. McNally was happy to talk about his senbazuru project for cancer survivors, and he showed us how to fold a paper crane. I also discussed twelve-year-old Sadako Sasaki, who famously set out to fold one thousand cranes after being diagnosed with leukemia as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Her memorial at Hiroshima Peace Park is now covered with paper cranes from around the world. The program ended with my friend and guest artist Beth Griffith, a wonderful singer and actor, singing “Amazing Grace” as a light to guide our healing in the darkness of the pandemic.
Like the birds, we perform migrations of our own over the course of our lives – evolving from carefree dreamers to responsible adults who light the way for those who come after us. My journey began as my dream, then dancing as a crane, then evolving to a Salon Series, Prayers and Healing though Symbolism of Cranes. Was it a long flight, you might ask? Actually, it was a quick trip for seventy years – almost like being in a dream.
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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