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Her father needed sons to hold on the household identify, however his spouse gave delivery to daughters. And so the famed Fujima Kansuma, grasp kabuki dancer who entertained generations of Japanese People, embraced the artwork as a result of it allowed her to tackle male roles as a method of fulfilling her dad’s want.
Relations say she didn't have any hobbies besides dance — and he or she stayed true to her lifelong ardour, performing and educating proper up till her loss of life from congestive coronary heart failure on Feb. 22. She was 104.
Born in San Francisco on Might 9, 1918, Kansuma was the oldest of two sisters orginally named Sumako Hamaguchi earlier than she assumed her stage identify. As a toddler, she was usually sick and bedridden, prompting a physician to advise her mother and father to seek out an exercise to construct up her immunity and energy. Her mom selected kabuki, and when the household moved to Los Angeles, their daughter started classes at 9, immersing herself within the classical type of Japanese theater, mixing drama with conventional dance.
Kansuma joined an all-girls troupe, touring Hawaii, then deciding she needed to be taught from the most effective. But the most effective was within the ancestral homeland.
“That was vital that they let her go,” stated her daughter, Miyako Tachibana, 72. “All her life, my mother had fantastic help in her mother and father and so they rose to the event when she advised them what she really desired.”
After graduating from highschool, Kansuma headed to Japan the place she studied underneath the “God of Theatre,” Onoe Kikugoro VI, a kabuki star who ran his personal faculty. Over the course of 4 years she absorbed the trials of performing, dancing, studying conduct a tea ceremony and organize flowers, costume in kimonos and practising etiquette. Her friends mocked her as “the woman from America,” however her household stated she was decided to hold on, choosing up new expertise resembling taking part in the taiko and tsuzumi, each percussion devices.
Her instructor gave her the identify Kansuma, and following competitions towards a few of Japan’s high college students, he granted her the distinction of performing considered one of his greatest identified dances for her skilled debut.
At 21, Kansuma got here dwelling with trunks filled with costumes and wigs and shortly opened her first studio in a downtown Los Angeles lodge.
“She was a instructor who took into consideration all of the personalities of these round her,” stated Annie Yoshihara, considered one of her lifelong college students. “She made dancing comfy for all of us, realizing our shortcomings. She made certain she catered to each individual in a particular method.”
“When you find yourself within the room together with her, the dance and the dancer are what you concentrate on,” stated Tachibana. “My mom was only a doll. She even seemed like a doll. At 4 toes 11 and a half, she would at all times attempt to get taller by her coiffure, or by her heels. On the stage, she was gargantuan. And he or she was charming. The inside presence that she had underneath the highlight, it was unbelievable.”
“Osho-san,” as her longtime college students respectfully referred to as her, launched her profession earlier than World Battle II. Within the earliest types of kabuki, feminine performers portrayed each women and men in comedian scenes about extraordinary life. But not lengthy after she started educating, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, pulling the U.S. into the conflict and main the federal government to forcibly relocate and imprison greater than 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent.
Fujima Kansuma
(Courtesy of Toyo Miyatake Studio)
Kansuma and her household have been moved round to completely different jail camps, ending up in Rohwer, Ark. The camp administrator sought out Kasuma after being inundated with letters from fellow detainees asking to proceed their dance classes.
“So he discovered my mom, discovered what she was about and allowed her to show at a number of the locations the place she was requested,” Tachibana stated.
He additionally started to take her on tour, together with to non-public faculties, in an effort “to provide the white individuals of America an concept of the true nature of the Japanese — to indicate them that this isn't the enemy. She was like a goodwill ambassador,” Tachibana stated. “She provided a way of consolation via her dance.”
Later, accompanied by an armed guard, Kasuma acquired permission to journey to Los Angeles to retrieve extra costumes and music. In late 1945, when the conflict ended, she and her household returned to L.A. the place she threw herself right into a strict regime of educating and performing, taking part in dozens of Japanese American cultural occasions yearly throughout Southern California.
As her repute unfold, increasingly more college students flocked to her courses in Little Tokyo.
Yoshihara, 77, was solely 4 when she first met Kansuma.
“She stated to me, ‘take off your footwear’ and I wouldn’t try this. So she created a routine with a doll within the studio to get my consideration,” Yoshihara stated. “The subsequent week after I got here again, I introduced my very own doll and that sort of jazzed me and I began cooperating. I’ve been taking classes ever since.”
Kansuma labored with Walt Disney, who appreciated to infuse an “worldwide taste” in his exhibits. When he offered a “Household Evening” on the Hollywood Bowl, her kabuki college students would carry out after the Mouseketeers and different acts. And when Disney organized a “Christmas in Many Lands” parade at Disneyland, Yoshihara and her troupe have been invited to march and dance.
Even at a dance lesson days earlier than her loss of life, Kansuma “was, as normal, full-speed,” Yoshihara stated. In her fourth-floor studio at L.A.’s Japanese American Cultural and Group Heart, “her voice rang clear. She was yelling at us. She stated ‘flip round, go backwards, come ahead.’ She was a fantastic choreographer. She by no means missed any steps.”
Via greater than 70 years of dancing, Kansuma taught practically 2,000 college students, amongst them her daughter, who achieved kabuki grasp standing.
Toyo Wedel, 80, was 6 when Kansuma stopped by her dance class in Chicago throughout considered one of Kansuma’s excursions. On the time, her busy household life left Wedel no time to pursue her curiosity in dance.
Her Japanese lecturers had simply returned from Los Angeles, the place Osho-san gave them non-public instruction.
“I at all times cherished dance, however I needed to elevate my youngsters,” stated Wedel, who finally moved to Thousand Oaks. However when her youngest son went off to school in 1998, she referred to as up Kansuma.
“She stated to me: ‘I’m 80. You come again.’ So I went again — that was 24 years in the past,” Wedel stated. “She’s simply the kindest instructor you may have. She would inform us the story behind the dance, the story behind the character. I've at all times cherished how she by no means stops selling her artwork and our traditions.”
Kansuma’s dedication to sharing the great thing about kabuki and her Japanese heritage received her awards, together with the Order of the Treasured Crown, Apricot, from the Japanese authorities in 1985 and the Nationwide Heritage Fellowship from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts in 1987.
In 2018, at 100, she served as choreographer for the Los Angeles Nisei Week Parade, persevering with a practice of Nisei Week involvement that showcased her college students’ performances for many years.
A celebration of her life has been scheduled for April 16 on the JACCC’s Aratani Theater. Kansuma is survived by her daughter, son-in-law Noriyoshi Tachibana; and three grandchildren, Jonathan, Taizo and Miwa Tachibana.
Wedel stated she's going to always remember her ultimate second with Kansuma. “Her final phrases to me have been — as I stated goodbye to her after follow — ‘watch out going dwelling due to the solar.’ At 104, she nonetheless nervous about me driving into the glare of the solar. I couldn’t consider it.”
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