Theatre, Dance and Performance Training

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Somatic attunement/self-cultivation: Japanese

immigration and the performing arts

Barbara Sellers-Young

To cite this article: Barbara Sellers-Young (2020) Somatic attunement/self-cultivation: Japanese

immigration and the performing arts, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 11:3, 380-393,
DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2020.1789720

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2020.1789720

Published online: 10 Sep 2020.

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Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 2020
Vol. 11, No. 3, 380–393, https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2020.1789720

Somatic attunement/self-cultivation:
Japanese immigration and the
performing arts
Barbara Sellers-Young

Contemporary theorists, Schechner, Fisher-Lichte, Bharucha, Holledge and Tompkins and

others, have written extensively on the global discourse of intercultural performance and
its attempt to intermingle such cultural traditions as the textual borrowing of Peter
Brook’s Mahabharata or Tadashi Suzuki’s Trojan Women, the integration of physical styles
of Ariane Mnouchkine and the conscious cultural negotiations of such productions as Ong
Seng’s Masterkey, a collaboration between Japanese and Australian performers. While
these theorists acknowledge that the performer’s body is an integral part of intercultural
performance, the majority of their discussion has centered on materialist readings of
colonialism, race, gender, authenticity, cultural ownership, and the political empowerment
of post-colonial subjects. At the margins of their discussion has been the subjective
knowledge or phenomenological experience of the ethnic communities, in some cases
immigrant communities, whose expertise, directly or indirectly, contributes to the style of
performance. This essay examines the role of Japanese Americans, as immigrants and
citizens, in the evolution of cultural life and performance training in the United States.

Keywords: Japan, immigration, Nihon Buy^

o, self-cultivation, somatic, Zen

Hazel Durnell (1983) and Leonard Pronko (1967) point out, in their
respective studies, Japanese influence on Western thought began with the
cultural exchanges between United States and Japan following
Commodore Perry’s visits to Japan in 1853–54. They note for example
the influence of the French adaptation of Japanese prints that initiated
what is referenced as the japonisme movement. Barbara Thornbury points
out the continuation of this cultural discourse in America’s Japan and
Japan’s Performing Arts: Cultural Mobility and Exchange in New York
1952–2011 (2013). Helen Tworkov (1989), Judith Snodgrass (2003) and

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 381

Kay Larson (2013) document the contributions of D. T. Suzuki and

Nyogen Senzaki and others in introducing Zen to the American public
beginning with Soyen Shaku’s (1859–1919) visit to the World Parliament
of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Alongside pubic exchanges of art, per-
forming groups and religious discourse, there was also the influence of
the Japanese immigrants who brought with them the Zen-based style of
living that influenced their approach to the arts – Ikebana (flower arrang-
ing), Haiku (poetry), Nihon Buy^ o (classical dance), Noh (theatre) and
Daito-ryu Jujutsu (martial arts practice). This essay considers the Japanese
American contribution to performance training through the lens of Nihon
Buy^ o. This includes the first-generation immigrants or issei, the second-
generation nisei and the third-generation sansei (Glenn 1986). As such, it
documents the role that Japanese Americans have had on contemporary
performance practice.

Japanese immigration and the arts

Following the political and social turmoil of Japan’s Meiji Restoration in

1868, four hundred thousand Japanese from the farming areas of Japan
immigrated first to Hawaii and then to primarily the west coast of the
United States to work in the agricultural fields, railroads, salmon can-
neries, forests and sawmills. The number of immigrants were slowed with
the immigration act of 1924 that banned all but a token number of
Japanese (Ito 1973).
Among the Japanese immigrants were two Zen monks sent to the
United States by Soyen Shaku (1859–1919) whose visit to Chicago con-
vinced him that ‘the future of Zen rested with the barbarians in the
West’ (Tworkov 1989, 21). Suzuki (1869–1966) arrived in 1909 and
stayed in this first visit for 13 years living in the Indiana home of scholar
Paul Carus and writing numerous articles on Zen in English. His extensive
publications provided a platform for his lectures and writings across the
United States and Europe. His most popular work was Zen and Japanese
Culture (1959). Nyogen Senzaki (1876–1958) arrived in San Francisco in
1922 with Soyen Shaku who was to give a series of lectures. When
Soyen Shaku returned to Japan, Nyogen Senzaki stayed and eventually
evolved what was referred to as a floating Zendo, first in San Francisco
and later in Los Angeles where he taught meditation. Following the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was among the other Japanese Americans
sent to an internment camp. He spent World War II at Heart Mountain
camp in Wyoming, after which he returned to Los Angeles to teach
meditation (Tworkov 1989; Snodgrass 2003).
Suzuki, through his writings, had the most direct influence on
American thought. His approach combining psychology with spirituality
with its ‘assertion of ever-present time, repetition as the basis for discip-
line; and poetry and irrationality as a way of accessing the unconscious
… and the development of intuition as means of enlightenment’
(Tworkov 1989, 9) would become an important ingredient in the impro-
visational process of John Cage and many American artists (Larson 2013).
While Suzuki’s writings inspired a generation of artists and writers,
382 B. Sellers-Young

Senzaki, through his modest Los Angeles zend^ o, provided Americans with
an experience of Zen’s formal physical tradition. By his focus on Zen
meditation practice, ‘Americans began to learn that although Zen training
may tame the mind, it does not lead to mystical awakening; but if the
mind can get quiet enough’ (Tworkov 1989, 11) the individual will both
become a vehicle for and realize deeper levels of self-activation.
Most often referred to as issei, first-generation immigrants were quick
to form associations with others from the same Japanese prefecture who
held similar artistic interests. These included Zen-based Nihon Buy^ o (Ito
1973). For all arts groups in Japan, the primary organizing structure was
the iemoto system. The head of the family or iemoto is an inherited pos-
ition passed from one blood relative to the next. Other members of the
school engage in mentor relationships that resemble those between
younger and older siblings. Students maintain a familial loyalty and accord-
ingly only study with one school; to do otherwise would be considered
disloyal. Consequently, the iemoto system’s organizational structure and
ethics of loyalty created a direct link to Japan. This link to Japan was sig-
nificant for many early Japanese immigrants, as unlike European immi-
grants, they were not allowed to become citizens or buy land.
Japanese life took a significant turn with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941. The afternoon following the attack, the FBI initiated
a roundup of issei community leaders. On February 19, 1942, President
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and notices were posted on April
28, 1942 ordering Japanese Americans to report to assembly centers.
Starting in late August and into September 1942, Japanese Americans were
transferred by rail to the internment camps in Idaho, Wyoming, California,
Arizona, Colorado and Arkansas (Takaki 2012).
As Delphine Hirasuna reports in the The Art of Gaman the arts were
pivotal for Japanese Americans living in the camps to ‘endure the situation
with dignity and grace’ (Hirasuna 2013, 6–7). For second generation
Nisei, an opportunity to engage in the arts, provided an introduction to
Japanese aesthetics, culture, and history. Patsy Abe, a Nisei, first learned
Nihon Buy^ o while incarcerated at Minidoka, Idaho. Time has erased the
teacher’s name, but not Patsy’s memory of the ‘beautiful costumes with
1 Personal communication, wigs and pretty fan.’ She states, ‘I fell in love with the form as it made
Portland, Oregon, 1993. me feel connected with something good when life was very difficult.’1
Studying dance, Patsy embodied the issei’s nostalgia for home related
to Japan. Nihon buy^ o is a form of dance derived from kabuki but heavily
influenced in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries by the reformist
agenda of Tsubouchi Sh^ oy^
o. In an attempted revision of kabuki, he united
the physical techniques of Kabuki to establish a new dance form ‘that was
in keeping with a modern temperament’ (Leiter et al. 1966, 392). The
popularity of these new innovations encouraged members of the all-male
Kabuki community, including Hanayagi Jusuke II, to establish schools of
Japanese dance, or buy^ o no ry^uha. Economic prosperity allowed middle
class Japanese families to send their daughters to study artistic disciplines,
including Nihon Buy^ o, to teach them sesshin (concentration and internal
strength) and the ability to cope with ‘the demands and realities of
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 383

everyday life’ (Hendry 1986, 158). Today, there are 150 schools in Japan,
some led by a Kabuki actors and others, such as Tachibana-ryu,
by women.
The Nihon Buy^ o teachers in the internment camps provided an oppor-
tunity and a dilemma for their students. In their role as cultural educa-
tors, they fostered an image of Japan through the physical portrayal of
stories linked to the most politically stable period in Japanese history, the
Tokugawa period (1603–1868). In ongoing lessons, students participated
in individualized ritual dialogues with their sensei (teacher) to learn to
embody the stories of this period in Japan’s history. The movement
vocabulary was divided into mai or movement derived from Noh, odori
developed from the folk dances of common people and furi or panto-
minic movement of Kabuki. Learning through an artistic framework
adopted from Zen conceptions of self-cultivation, students were taught a
series of dances that featured female (onnagata) and male (tachiyaku)
characters. Thus, a student might in one lesson (and sometimes within
one dance) cross the boundaries and construction of the body from
an idealized masculine–in which the focus of the body was focused
outward–and idealized feminine–in which the focus of the body was
internal. The basic masculine and feminine postures were furthered div-
ided into a variety of stock male and female characters portraying various
people of all ages and classes from the Tokugawa period. Learning the
diverse theatrical vocabulary of samurai, priests, young daughters, older
women, and servants through the imitation of the teacher, the student
was required to quickly adjust from one character to another. Hence,
students were, in their study of buy^ o, learning performative identities for
which they had no contemporary referent.
Patsy was also studying Nihon Buy^ o in a context in which Japan and
America were over-determined identities as nisei in the camps tried to
reconcile the Japan of their parent’s memories with the Japanese
American Citizens League encouragement to cooperate with the United
States government as a way of proving they were 110% American.
Learning buy^ o was, within this set of circumstances, a site of negotiation
between the harsh realities of camp life and a desire to embody a
Japanese heritage of the past. Patsy’s study of buy^ o can therefore be read
2 Personal communication, as an act of self-definition and resistance to pressures of assimilation as
Portland, Oregon 1993. well as an act of physical empowerment that as Patsy phrased it: ‘just felt
good’2 (Hirasuna 2013). For other nisei, such as Hanayagi Jutemai, this
early study of buy^ o inaugurated a life course that would include returning
to Japan following World War II to pass performance exams within the
Hanayagi school (Hirasuna 2013). Consequently, she has preserved a
Japanese cultural presence in the central valley of California. Other teach-
ers in Los Angles, New York and Portland, Oregon are linked to the
Tachibana, Soke Fujima, Fujima, and other Japanese schools. Hence, stu-
dents are, in their study of buy^ o, learning performative identities that are
the consequence of dance’s ability to finely tune sensibilities and thus help,
as Cynthia Bull points out ‘to shape the practices, beliefs and ideas of peo-
ple’s lives’ (1997, 267–287).
384 B. Sellers-Young

Nevertheless, the students were also exposed to the conflict between a

Japanese ethos and contemporary American society. The latter often asso-
ciated the physical vocabulary and female characters of Tokugawa Japan
with exotic fantasies perpetuated in media versions of the Madame
Butterfly myth, including such films as Sayanora (1957) and The Barbarian
and the Geisha (1958) as well as such books as Arthur Golden’s Memories
of a Geisha (1997). Each of these interpretations directly or indirectly
evoked a discursive representation of a stereotype of the Japanese woman
as ‘super-feminized exotic object in whom the soul of the geisha resides’
(Yamamoto 1999, 22). The dilemma facing buy^ o students was that they
must reconcile such representations with their buy^ o training and a related
Japanese ethos. They must also reconcile their buy^ o training with an
American school physical education programs and other western dance
forms which promote a very different conception of the mind/body rela-
tionship. Hence buy^ o students have been constantly negotiating a body
bilingualism or coming to terms with Japaneseness, both the repres-
entational Japan of their experience via the arts and the imaginary Japan of
the media, and through the lens of American social values and cul-
tural lenses.
The method of performance transmission or ‘restoration of behavior’ is
a direct personal interaction between teacher and student. Each teacher
conforms to a belief articulated by founder of medieval Japanese Noh the-
atre Zeami (Kanze Saburo Motokiyo 1363–1443) that a good student
‘imitates his teacher well, shows discernment, assimilates his art into his
mind and body, and so arrives at a level of Perfect Fluency through mas-
tery of his art’ (Rimer and Masakazu 1984, 66). The concentration and
focus necessary to imitate another person are an extension of Zen medita-
tion practices that require practitioners to assume a particular sitting pos-
ition or form. Thus, all students are required to engage their entire
sensory system in learning buy^ o and thus participate, according to Japanese
philosopher Yasuo Yuasa, in both the bright and dark consciousness. The
bright level is the conscious level of experience. The dark level functions
similarly to the autonomic nervous system. It can also be considered to
approximate the views of the lived experience of the body of Merleau-
Ponty, Bergson, and the no-mind of Buddhism. Psychologists might refer to
it as an aspect of the unconscious. It is this dark level of consciousness
that Yuasa believes is the basis for artistic training in Japan:

Initially, the body’s movements do not follow the dictates of the mind. The
body is heavy, resistant to the mind’s movement; in this sense, the body is
an object opposing the living subject (shutai) mode of being. That is, the
mind (or consciousness) and the body exhibit an ambiguous subjective-
objective dichotomy within the self’s mode of being. To harmonize the
mind and body through training is to eliminate this ambiguity in practice; it
amounts to subjunctivizing the body, making it the lived subject. This is a
practical, not a conceptual, understanding. Although we tend to forget that
which is cerebrally understood, we do not forget what we learned through
our body. What we acquire through our body can be unconsciously,
naturally expressed in body movements fitting ’form.’ The ’mind’ here is
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 385

not the surface consciousness, but is the ’mind’ that penetrates into the
body and deeply subjunctivizes it. (Yuasa 1987, 105)

The buy^ o student is learning on two levels, conscious (bright) realization

and unconscious (dark) knowledge. There are psychophysical aspects to
both levels. The student is physically conscious of the specific movement
phrases as they are learned. As the movements and the associated aes-
thetic become more ingrained, they become part of the dark level of
unconscious knowledge. In the process, it is assumed that the student
will gain an embodied understanding of Japan and a set of somatic skills
associated with enhanced levels of body/mind integration.
Despite the continuity of the iemoto system, each buy^ o teacher has
evolved a slightly different approach to help the individual students nego-
tiate via movement the dark and bright sides of their consciousness.
Three examples of different approaches are represented in the profes-
sional lives of Fujima Kanriye, Fujima Nishiki, and Hanayagi Jutemai.
Fujima Kanriye (1923–2015), a certified teacher of the Kanemon
branch of the Fujima Ry^u, started taking lessons in Hiroshima at the age
of six. In 1957, she came to the United States at the invitation of the
Japanese American community in Ontario, Oregon to teach dance. For
forty years she taught in Portland and Ontario, Oregon as well as
Spokane, Washington students who range in age from 5 to 70. Fujima
sensei taught a set of dances she believed would give students the som-
atic skills to live life gracefully. For example, a student with a problem
concentrating was taught a dance with slow, sustained movement. During
the lesson, her interactions with the students closely resembled the non-
verbal approach practiced in Japan in which the student is expected to
diligently concentrate on copying the body of the teacher. Fujima sensei
performed small phrases of the dance while the student followed
attempting to replicate the exact stance and related gestures of Fujima
sensei’s body. On rare occasions, she physically adjusted the student’s
body or explained the specific images of the dance. The kata, or dance
phrases, were not analyzed as separate kinesthetic elements. Once she
believed the student had learned the entire dance, she silently watched
the dancer providing small hand gestures as cues if the student’s kines-
thetic memory failed. Her relationship with the student remained
3 Observed and throughout the lesson warm but formal.3
participated in classes
from 1985–1993. Fujima Nishiki (1920–2012) initially took buy^ o lessons prior to
World War II with Los Angles based teacher Fujima Kansuma. She was
invited by Nakamura Tomofuku to join an all-female Kabuki troupe and
performed from Seattle to Los Angles. After World War II, she
returned to Japan for ten years where she became a member of the
Soke Fujima school. On her return to the United States she began
teaching and also served as a translator for the Institute for the
Advanced Studies in the Theatre Arts (IASTA) and other international
performing organizations which have introduced western actors and
dancers to Japanese theatre. The later included serving as interpreter
and earphone translator for the 1960 tour of Grand Kabuki to the
United States.
386 B. Sellers-Young

Fujima Nishiki did not teach individual students but transmitted the buy^o
vocabulary via a group lesson that included students with various ethnic
identities. Each class began with a group practice of Mats no Midori, a piece
that incorporated the principal buy^ o vocabulary while Fujima Nishiki
watched. New students followed from a position in the back of the studio.
The rest of the class was divided into segments for each student. Her
work with the student varied depending on how far they had progressed
with learning the dance. For those in the final stages, she watched and
made verbal corrections or answered questions the student might have
concerning a specific phrase. Although they did not receive individual atten-
tion, all students in the class participated in the practice of each dance
piece. The process of teaching a new dance was similar to that of Fujima
Kanriye. It included limited analysis of movement phrases or their inter-
action with the music, but many repetitions. As with Kanriye Fujima, the
assumption was that the transference of knowledge between master and
4 Observations of classes pupil would take place in the joint reiteration of the movement.4
in summer of 1999. Hanayagi Jutemai, a second generation nisei, started lessons as a small
child in California. After World War II, she returned to Tokyo to take the
necessary exams to become a certified teacher of the Hanayagi Ry^u. She
has been teaching students of various ages in the Sacramento area for forty
years. Her method of teaching follows a similar pattern of mimesis prac-
ticed by others. She has, however, adjusted this method to accommodate
her interpretation of the learning styles of her Sacramento students. As
5 Personal communication, she phrases it, ‘American students have a different approach to learning.’5
Sacramento, Initially, she sings and dances the phrases as the student follows. When
California 2001.
confronted with a particularly complex phrase, she slows down the timing
of the movement to allow the student to grasp the intricacies of the
phrase. If a student still seems confused, she will have the student repeat
over and over smaller increments of the phrase with verbal suggestions.
These can include statements such as lead with the chest, drop the weight
on a turn, and initiate with the head or torso. When necessary she adjust
parts of the student’s body either during or at the end of a phrase. She
might also indicate the phrase’s timing by indicating a musical transition or
make other corrections depending upon the student. It is only after the
dance has learned in this manner phrase by phrase that she incorporates
the recorded music into the lesson. Even at this stage, she will go back and
repeat corrections that might have been made earlier, but were forgotten
by the student. Finally, as in the case of Fujima Kanriye, she watches the
6 Observed and dancer and cues her with slight hand gestures.6
participated in classes
from 1998 to 2001. Each teacher has evolved an approach that is a result of her personal
history–strong ties to Japan (Fujima Kanriye), interactions with the inter-
national theatre community (Fujima Nishiki), a nisei member of a
California community (Hanayagi Jutemai). The choices of each teacher
indicate the flexibility that is inherent in the direct transmission of a
form. The iemoto system assumes that the next generation of teachers
will modify or adjust teaching strategies in response to their community.
In making this adjustment, the three teachers are following the advice
that Fujima Kanriye’s teacher Onoe Sh oroku gave her when she came to
the United States to let America be the teacher.
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 387

Beyond teaching Nihon buy^ o, Fujima Kanriye, Hanayagi Jutemai, Fujima

Nishki and the other dance sensei guided the Japanese American commu-
nity through the dances and rhythms of the yearly O’bon festival, organ-
ized performances for the many Cherry Blossom festivals that existed
throughout the United States, and in some cases, for which Fujima Nishki
is an example provided translation for visiting artists from Japan. Their
students were not limited to members of the Japanese American commu-
nity but included individuals interested in dance such as Larry Kominz a
professor at Portland State University and Leonard Pronko who ultim-
ately taught at Pomona College and produced a series of Kabuki plays.
James R. Brandon noted that Asian components of theatre programs
were often initiated by people who served in the military in Asia during
World War II or in the postwar Occupation (1989, 25). Often, as at the
University of Hawaii, these programs were also tied to the local immi-
grant community. With their development, students and professors
increasingly had an opportunity to participate either as cast or audience
members in Japanese-centered productions. They also had an opportunity
to read new texts on Japanese theatre or go to study in Japan through
programs such as the Kyoto-based Traditional Theatre Training program.
Through their ongoing position within the iemoto system of their school,
the Nihon Buy^ o teachers provided a link between the Japanese American
community and the arts community in Japan. Consequently, many nisei
and sansei have returned to Japan to study the arts. One example is,
Tomie Hahn, author of Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through
Japanese Dance (2007) that documents her experience studying the form.

Sansei, the third generation

Like their Japanese counterparts, Nihon Buy^ o students in America can

increase their standing within the school and become natori or named
members of the school. This status is achieved by taking a performance
exam either in the United States or Japan. Although each school has a
slightly different performance requirement, all require the performance of
both male and female style movement in either one or two dances. For
instance, in the Soke Fujima school, students perform Nayose no Kotobuki
(A Series of Congratulatory Scenes), a non-narrative piece that alternates
between male and female characters. In the Kanemon branch of the
Fujima school, the student is required to perform separate male and
female pieces from the buy^ o repertoire for the iemoto or his representa-
tive in a public concert. An entire set of rituals surrounds becoming a
natori, culminating in the taking of a name that unites the student with
the school. When Diana Hinatsu, a member of Portland’s Fujinami-kai,
became a natori, she took the professional name Fujima Kanchie, a blend
of kan–an indication that she was part of the Kanemon branch of the
Fujima school and chie–a rendition of her Issei grandmother’s name.
Thus, her professional name indicated ongoing links to Japan as well as to
her family’s history in the United States.
Becoming a natori was for Diana the culmination of years of study
with Kanriye Fujima beginning when she was seven. The study created a
388 B. Sellers-Young

subtle conflict between her ‘Yankee’ and ‘Japanese’ self which did reveal
itself until she was in junior high and was asked to perform a buy^ o at a
school function. Prior to this event, these two worlds had been separate
spheres of influence. The performance in front of her school peers
brought the two worlds together. Standing on stage in a kimono, she was
different from her peers and was highly uncomfortable. Reflecting on this
moment, she realizes that despite her love of dance she would have quit
her lessons except for two individuals–her mother and Fujima Kanriye.
The authority of her mother was the obvious reason for her continuing
to study buy^ o, but her affection for and loyalty to Fujima Kanriye instilled
in numerous individual lessons was paramount in her resolving the emo-
tional discomfort of the moment. Later in her twenties, she took classes
in modern dance, worked with former Weidman dancer Janet Towner
and became an active member of Portland, Oregon’s modern dance com-
munity. This experience with modern dance also did not deter her study
with Fujima Kanriye. In 1992, she became a natori. A designation achieved
partly by her mother’s willingness to pay the $10,000 natori fee with the
reparation funds she received from the United States government for
their World War II internment policies.
Despite clearly distinct training methods–modern is taught in classes
instead of individual lessons–and different constructions of the body in
time and space between these two dance communities, they are not
experienced by Diana as in opposition to each other. Diana has synthe-
sized her early buy^ o training with modern dance by creating a process
evolved from her lessons with Fujima Kanriye. As a child, Diana found
the teaching format, movement, and narrative line of buy^ o for which she
had no referent, confusing. Using her imagination, she created a story
with a series of images that, for her, corresponded to the dan-
ce’s vocabulary.

I did not know Japanese and literally did not know what the dances were
about. I needed to make sense out of the dances I was learning. So, I
created images and stories to the music based partly on what Fujima
Kanriye told me the music was about and partly just using my own
7 Personal imagination. I felt I was creating characters and stories that fit the music.7
communication 1995.

Diana’s tendency is to focus on kinesthetic imagery. A perceptive ten-

dency, Howard Gardner (1983) refers to as bodily-kinesthetic intelligen-
ce–a form of intelligence which when ‘focusing inward, is limited to the
exercise of one’s own body and, facing outward, entails physical actions
on the objects in the world’ (235). Faced with learning to dance a form
which had no movement or linguistic referent in her daily life, Diana
turned inward to evolve a process of creating and codifying information.
This process became her performer’s body or the set of knowledge and
skills a dancer learns in the study of a particular form that she projects
outward in a choreography.
Learning children’s dances such as Kami Ningyo, the story of a paper
doll who goes out in the rain and gets wet, Diana composed a set of
images that became the kinesthetic categories of the dance. Although
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 389

influenced to some degree by her grandmother’s stories and picture

books of Japan, the images she referenced were primarily from her
Portland home, neighborhood, and the actual experience of the lesson.
Diana continued this process with increasingly complex dances. She did
not learn the Japanese names for the kata or dance phrases, instead, she
had a kinesthetic image associated with each. Since these images were
integrated into the story she created for the dance, she did not name the
images. Thus, they did not operate as a set linguistic category, but more
in the manner of a kinesthetic metaphor, a sensory image that identified
an aural and visual–music and movement experience. This kinesthetic
metaphor could be adapted and its meaning negotiated for a new dance.
Once established the process operated for Diana, as ninety percent of all
thought does, on Yuasa’s ‘dark’ level.
Diana’s study of a Japanese form created a process which she later
applied to her performances as a modern dancer. Using the buy^ o derived
process, she creates an internal monologue of images to represent each
moment of the modern dance vocabulary presented in class or a chore-
ography. Diana refers to it as a process of the ‘internalization to external-
ization.’ These internal images form a kinesthetic alternative to a western
structural approach to a movement phrase that might focus on the turn
out of the position of the spine, the shaping of the torso, and spatial
intention of a gesture of an arm or leg. It is an approach to the body that
is the result of years of individual instruction dancing to a narrative line
for which she had no referent in personal experience. The internalization
of knowledge approximates that of a student of Zen meditation. The Zen
student is consciously aware that she is sitting for a period of time in a
physical posture allowing the mental images to flow through her mind
without attachment or judgement. She is also, however, on an uncon-
scious level through the daily practice of the sitting posture teaching her-
self to take a non-dualistic psychological perspective on living.
Diana’s process was related to her subjective experience of attempting
to negotiate Japanese and American paradigms. Since her buy^ o lessons
started when she was a child, she learned early in life to rely on her
imagination to solve the language dilemma related to the style of teaching
and the narrative line of classical Japanese music. The internalization to
externalization process she has developed operates to such a degree in
Yuasa’s dark level of being that she has no words to describe the kines-
thetic images. Instead, she has an internal set of somatic images that uni-
tes visual and aural dimensions, proprioceptive integrations, and breath
with emotional states. This invisible part of her subjective experience
becomes visible when she steps on a stage to perform a Nihon Buy^ o or
modern choreography. Audiences are not aware of the process behind
the image, rather, they describe her performance with phrases such as
‘fully realized’ and ‘perceptually integrated.’ Each of which imply a level of
performance that is charismatic in its appeal and reminiscent of western
observations of Japanese performance of Noh and Kabuki.
Diana Hinastsu is not alone in finding a method to integrate of her
Japanese and western training. Judy Halebsky in “June Watanabe’s
Translation/Transformatin of Japanese N o in Contemporary Practice”
390 B. Sellers-Young

(2007) documents Watanabe’s working process. Watanabe, a retired

dance teacher at Mills College in California, trained in ballet as a child
and later modern dance at UCLA. However, Watanabe suggests that her
approach to dance and choreography was influenced by her issei father’s
study of mai or dances associated with Noh performance and being
raised in a Zen influenced home that incorporated a formal gestural rela-
8 Oral History, June
tionship with the body.8 Watanabe finds her approach to choreography is
Watanabe, https:// to work with a set the collaborators to be in the moment and letting this
archive.org/details/ focus on the present guide improvisations into a developed performance
csfpal_000018/csfpal_
000018_d1_access.HD. work (2007, 518).
mov Accessed October
1, 2019.
The legacy of Nihon Buy^
o

The legacy of Nihon Buy^ o and its related Zen aesthetic is the contribution
of Japanese American immigrants that was an extension of the concepts of
being Japanese that were visually embedded in japonisme. Today, there are
5,000 professional Nihon Buy^ o dancers with the status to teach active in
Japan. Many of them have affiliations that bring them to the United States
9 Helen Rolfe, Dance
to teach.9 A process of exchange between the Japan and United States that
Spirit, Oct 4, 2018, increased following World War II influenced by the number of Americans
https://www.dancespirit. – military and otherwise – stationed in Japan. As Judy Van Zile suggests
com/japanese-classical-
dance-2608175025.html, and, as Diana Hinatsu experience indicates, those who study Nihon Buy^ o
Accessed October or became engaged in Zen mediation in the United States are participating
1, 2019.
in an ‘intertwining’ of cultures (Van Zile 1996, 48) to invent new modes of
intercultural practice and subjective identity. Rustom Bharucha describes
this intertwining as ‘an incredible conflict that takes place within the body,
as its psycho-physical assumptions are dislocated’ (2000, 153). Western stu-
dents, regardless of their family background, who undertake the study of a
somatic based form such as Nihon Buy^ o are faced with United States
mind/body dichotomy approach to education (Sellers-Young 1998, 2001).
This includes dance studios in which training concentrates on a set of body
parts in front of a mirror and theatre in which text, body and voice are
taught as separate courses.
Teachers of acting, movement, and voice, influenced by the increased
presence of Japanese and Zen-based aesthetic, have studied Zen medita-
tion and Japanese performance styles, often from Japanese immigrants, in
an attempt to evolve training methods that would provide mind/body
integration. Essentially, the goal has been to move beyond conflicts
between ‘internal’ versus ‘external’ advocates, and to unify the actor’s
mind/body. One approach has been to examine the texts of Stanislavski
and Zeami to discover compatible, if not necessarily identical, concepts in
their respective theatre ideas. From Stanislavski, they borrowed the con-
cept of physical action. In Creating a Role (1961), Stanislavski situated ele-
ments of his system from text analysis and improvisation around the
concept of physical action, which he defines as containing inner and outer
aspects: ‘In every physical action, unless it is purely mechanical, there is
concealed some inner action, some feelings. This is how the two levels of
life in a part are created, the inner and the outer. They are intertwined.
A common purpose brings them together and reinforces the unbreakable
 Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 391

bond’ (1961, 221). Acting teachers reference this as ‘one intensity of

mind.’ Zeami phrased it: ‘The actor must rise to a selfless level of art,
imbued with a concentration that transcends his own consciousness, so
that he can bind together the moments before and after that instant
10 Zeami’s ideas on acting
when nothing happens, through one intensity of mind.’10 Zeami’s intensity
are discussed in of mind is the realization of self-cultivation practices advocated by
Richard N. McKinnon, Japanese performance forms that require the participant engage their
“Zeami on the Art of
Training,” Harvard entire somatic self in the current moment. These ideas evolved into the
Journal of Asiatic Studies ‘points of concentration’ exercises that have become a consistent part of
16 (1953): 200–225.
See also Mark contemporary acting classes.
Nearman, “Zeami’s In a point of concentration exercise, Zeami’s actor’s mind and
Ky^ui: A Pedagogical
Guide for Teachers of
Stanislavski’s physical action come together to help actors concentrate and
Acting,” Monumenta integrate their inner landscape with their external environment. An
Nipponica, 33 (Autumn example would be the actor’s preparation at the beginning of a training
1978): 299–332;
“Kyakuraika: Zeami’s session, where the point of concentration generally incorporates some
Final Legacy for the form of focus on breathing designed to achieve greater muscular release
Master Actor,”
Monumenta Nipponica, and awareness of a somatic state which is centered, grounded, and respon-
35 (Summer 1980): sive. The actor’s mind, therefore, is related to the kinesthetic experience
153–197; “Kaky^ o:
Zeami’s Fundamental
of breathing and related energy states as well as to the ability to be simul-
Principles of Acting,” taneously internally aware and externally focused. Students are encouraged
Monumenta Nipponica,
37 (Autumn and
to maintain a state of actor’s mind with a variety of phrases, such as ‘stay
Winter 1982): 333–74, in the moment’ and ‘persist on the edge of the cliff.’ The psycho-physical
459–496; and “Feeling state of actor’s mind has become part of what many acting teachers associ-
in Relation to Acting:
An Outline of Zeami’s ate with ‘honest,’ ‘sincere,’ or ‘truthful’ performance.11
Views,” Asian Theatre Intercultural performance is most often considered on the basis of the
Journal, 1 (Spring 1984):
40–45; Zeami, On the
productions of auteur directors – Peter Brook, Ong Seng, Tadashi Suzuki
Art of the N^o Drama: and Eugenio Barba. While theorists acknowledge that the performer’s
The Major Treatises of body is an integral part of intercultural performance, the majority of their
Zeami, translated by J.
Thomas Rimer and discussion has centered on the director’s ability to integrate styles of per-
Yamazaki Masakazi. formance across national boundaries. At the margins of their discussion
Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University has been the subjective knowledge or phenomenological experience of
Press, 1984. ethnic communities, in some cases originally immigrant communities,
11 These comments are whose expertise, directly or indirectly, contributes to the style of per-
based on my long
personal experience of
formance. This essay, through its focus on Nihon Buy^ o, has considered
working as an acting the role of Japanese immigrants and their extended families in the evolu-
teacher and movement tion of cultural life and performance training in the United States. As
coach, which has
brought me in contact such, it opens the door to query in what ways have other immigrant
with actors, directors, groups impacted, or maybe in some cases, transformed the aesthetics of
and teachers in
workshops and performances in the United States or elsewhere around the globe.
productions across the
United States.
ORCID

Barbara Sellers-Young http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0624-0745

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Barbara Sellers-Young is a Senior Scholar and Professor Emerita in the Dance

Department at York University. She is past president of the Congress on Research in Dance
and has taught at institutions in United States, Australia, China and England. She is the
author of three single authored books: Teaching Personality with Gracefulness, Breathing,
Movement, Exploration, and Belly Dance: Pilgrimage and Identity as well as the jointly
authored book with Robert Barton Movement OnStage and Off. She co-edited The Oxford
Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity and Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism and
Harem Fantasy with Anthony Shay. Other co-edited volumes include: Embodied
Consciousness: Performing Technologies and Narrative in Performance with Jade
Rosina McCutcheon.