Forging a new Asian dance style, as Keiko Takeya set out to accomplish nearly 15 years ago, meant the modern dancer had to step back a few paces. First, Takeya had to learn to become Asian.She was born in Japan, but said, speaking through an interpreter, "Japan is a unique society, more influenced by the West and not so much by the rest of Asia. So I think a lot of Japan people have been seeing Asia as if they are Western people, forgetting that they are Japanese."
This was a revelation when she arrived in New York as a trainee in the Martha Graham School. She became a full-time member of the renowned Martha Graham Company 1975-76 group, later leaving for the stages of Brazil, Greece, Hong Kong and Asia.
"When I am in Japan, I know that I am not Korean, Chinese or Vietnamese. But in New York, people kept asking if I was Korean, Chinese or Vietnamese, and I was rather shocked to be asked. A lot of people in Japan never experienced such a shock.
"I became more aware of how the rest of the world looked at Japan, and I started looking at my country more objectively," she said. "As a member of an Asian country it is important to try to understand other Asian cultures."
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Keiko Takeya runs through stretching exercises with
a dance class at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
Takeya's company makes its American debut Saturday at the Hawaii Theatre, performing "Aria 9" and "Lost Angel." The former, choreographed by company member Masako Seki, uses nine operatic arias to express varying emotional states on such themes as "Blinded by Love," "Arias for Insomniacs" and "Melting Point." In "Lost Angel," scripted by Takeya, the dance follows a childhood-to-adulthood theme, starting with movements mimicking playground games, which flow into impressions of growing up and moving to the city.While here, Takeya and her dancers are also keeping to a grueling schedule of visits to intermediate and high schools, colleges and universities throughout Oahu. True to Takeya's focus on sharing culture, the dancers have been speaking and working since Monday with students of Japanese language, theater and dance.
At a University of Hawaii-Manoa master class for intermediate-level dance students, body language went a long way toward overcoming a language barrier as Takeya, in an instant, proved all three of Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
Rolling her arm off the back of another dancer, she showed how one fluid motion can trigger an equal and opposite motion. Then, setting dancers on a self-contained path of movement from each corner of the room, they soon met in the center in a chaotic cyclone of arms, legs, kicks and thrusts.
Such movement, Takeya believes, is a product of one's culture.
"I want to rediscover the body's behaviors and actions, because the action of using the body is very culture-specific," she said.
For instance, in Hawaii we are accustomed to the Asian tradition of removing our shoes before entering a house. Yet this practice is also informed by a Western casualness, which means that some of us kick off our shoes rather than gracefully slipping out of them.
Even in studying the indigenous dances of various cultures, her focus is not on specific steps, but on bodily expression.
"Whether it's a battle or agricultural dance," she said, "these dance forms have been created by the culture itself."
Where arm movements in Western ballet tend to be curved and elongated, in the traditional dances of India, Cambodia and Thailand there is more bending of the wrists and elbows and more use of the hands, Dances We Dance artistic director Fritz Ludin explained.
"They use their hands to tell stories, so there are a lot of finger movements which are exaggerated," he said, even more so than in the hula.
Ludin, who has taught dance in Japan, said he saw many companies there but selected Takeya's to perform here. "I think it is an excellent company. I like their spirit and choreography and artistic point of view."
Takeya founded her company in Tokyo in 1983. Since then the troupe's dancing has been hailed as "uninhibited and stunning" by the Asahi Evening News and "technically remarkable" by the Japan Times.
In 1990 the company initiated the Asian Contemporary Arts Workshop in Tokyo, inviting collaboration by composers, actors and visual artists from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. Ludin said, "These artists are working together to find their own language and to build on their rich tradition."
American debut
Featuring: Keiko Takeya Contemporary Dance Company
