Black hair. A jilted woman. A sacrifice. Snow. “She’s a geisha who falls in love with a samurai. They have their one secret night together, but she realizes the future of the clan depends on his marrying this other woman, so she says, ‘Go.’ It’s their wedding night. She’s alone and undoing her hair. It’s black hair—a symbol of youth, the strength of a woman, resilience, beauty,” says choreographer Rika Lin on Kurokami (“Black Hair”), an excerpt from the now-lost 18th-century kabuki play Oakinai hirugakojima. “If you listen to the lyrics, it sounds like she was this innocent girl, and he went, ‘We’ll be together forever, baby!’ But if you know the play, she’s in anguish and bitter because she chose this sacrifice.”
Lin continued training in both Japanese classical dance and Shotokan karate. “The dojo [JKA Chicago Sugiyama Dojo, founded by Shojiro Sugiyama] was on the second floor, and my dance teacher worked on the first floor,” she recalls. “In karate, my teacher would say, ‘You’re dancing! This is karate!’ And I’d go to dance, and it would be, ‘You’re doing karate—this is dance!’ And I’d be like, ‘What am I doing?’”
So Lin became a physical therapist instead—and continued to dance. “The only time I missed the annual performance was in grad school, because there was no way. When I became a physical therapist, half the time to break the ice with my patients, I’m talking about dance. It’s this ‘super hobby’ that’s all you do. When you go home, you’re doing dance.” As she rose through the ranks at Shubukai, she assumed more responsibilities—”coordinating performances or calling and making arrangements or stage managing”—and eventually sought her professional stage name with the intention of continuing her teacher’s school.
“If you’re in Japan, you have a professional wigmaker, costume maker, makeup artist, musicians. But I grew up watching him do everything. Traditionally, the teacher does the first and last dance. Here, he does the first and last dance and changes everybody in between. I started helping with the dressing, makeup, wigs, and props—and thought, ‘Good grief, I wish I could just watch my teacher dance for once!’ So I proposed to him, ‘How about we do a program where only you dance, and we have some time to talk about it?’” For the first program, her teacher performed two dances, one “male” and one “female” (she notes that these performances of gender were invented by men: “The classical dance aesthetics were coming from kabuki, the male ideal of a woman”). After the first year, her teacher invited Lin to dance as well—he would continue to perform female roles, and she would dance male roles—and guests including lecturers, calligraphers, and students could contribute to the program as well. “This year we’re flipping it for the first time—he’s going to dance a male [role]; I’m going to dance female.”
Revitalizing Tradition XIV, Sat 4/10, 7 PM CDT (Q and A follows), available to stream afterward, stream.airmw.org, F, but donations accepted.Beyond the Box 4.3, Sat-Sun 5/15-5/16, 7 PM CDT, linkshall.org, $20 suggested donation.
