East/West: Introducing Asian dance to the United States

Abstract

When I retired as Director of Performing Arts Films and Lectures for The Asia Society in 1991, I had been involved with bringing Asian dance to American audiences for thirty-three years. My background of having grown up in Japan and traveled in Asia, as well as having studied many different types of dance from the age of six to nineteen with constant attendance at dance recitals, had prepared me for the task of introducing the best and most authentic of Asian performing arts to the United States. I began working at the Japan Society in 1958, and then, in the early 1960s, The Asia Society, a sister organization under the sponsorship of the same patron John D. Rockefeller 3rdasked me to work for them, too. Thus, I expanded my region of interest from Japan to include the other countries of Asia. In 1970, I became full-time Director of Performing Arts at The Asia Society, whose mission it is to bring better knowledge of Asia to the American public through art exhibitions, films, performances, lectures on economics and politics, and the like. When I first brought Japanese dance to the United States in the 1950s, many in the audience were heard to remark that they did not understand what it was all about, and that, although they appreciated the beauty of the costumes and the movements and props, they