Miyoko Watanabe

Kabuki dancer, actor, dance teacher, lecturer, translator and author Miyoko Watanabe, known professionally as Fujima Nishiki, passed away peacefully on Sunday, August 12, at her home in Los Angeles, not far from where she was born.

Studying Japanese classical dance from the age of 7, she quickly became well-known within the Japanese enclave called Sawtelle, where she grew up. In her teens, she was invited to join “Shojo Kabuki," an all-girl Kabuki troupe headed by Nakamura Tomofuku, performing up and down the West Coast, ranging as far afield as Hawaii, and playing every type of role from princess to toothless old man. Ms. Watanabe graduated from UCLA with a degree in German language, and served her country as a tri-lingual translator during WWII.

Returning to Shojo Kabuki, she was seen while performing by Otani Takejiro, then President of Shochiku, the company that manages Kabuki performances, who invited her to come and study in Japan, which she did for almost 10 years. All doors were open to her: among the arts she studied were acting with Ichikawa Danjuro XI (then Ebizo), receiving the name Ichikawa Bisho, and shamisen with Kineya Eizaemon, receiving the name Kineya Einishiki.

The art that was closest to Ms. Watanabe's heart was dance and she was an extraordinary dancer. She studied with Fujima Kanjuro VI, choreographer for the Kabuki Theatre, later to become a National Living Treasure, but who even then was considered to be a virtual god of dance. He gave her the performing name Fujima Nishiki, meaning "return home with honor," and indeed she did.

When the Grand Kabuki first came to New York City in 1960, Ms. Watanabe traveled with them as interpreter and earphone translator, a job she perfected at the Kabuki-za, also producing libretti for the performances together with renowned author Donald Richie. In the back of the libretti, her bio states, "It was she who was official broadcast-translator at the Kabuki-za, and who first employed transistor radios for this purpose." Ms. Watanabe continued with the tour to the West Coast as sole translator. Mr. Takeomi Nagayama, the late chairman of Shochiku, who was on that tour, reportedly remarked, "The first U.S. tour was really tough for us. We had to use trains for transportation. . . . I assure you that our performances would not have happened without Ms.Nishiki."

After the Grand Kabuki tour – under the auspices of IASTA (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Theatre Arts) headed by Dr. John Mitchell, Ms. Watanabe assisted Onoe Baiko VII in teaching Kabuki acting techniques, along with the Kabuki play Narukami, to American actors and actresses in New York. In 1968, again under IASTA, she assisted Matsumoto Koshiro VIII and Nakamura Matagoro II, teach the play Kanjincho, acting as assistant to the director for performance at the Library of Congress.

From 1961, Ms. Watanabe settled in New York, where she lived for almost 50 years, teaching Japanese classical dance to Japanese and non-Japanese students alike at the Nippon Club in Manhattan. She also traveled extensively, giving lecture/demonstrations about Kabuki at colleges and universities all over the country, and coaching many performers in Japanese movement. One of Ms. Watanabe's most notable successes was helping the Village Light Opera create Kabuki style for Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado"under the direction of Jack and Virginia Frymire. The performances made such a splash that the production was picked up by the light opera wing of New York City Opera (The City Center Light Opera) and performed at City Center with Ms. Watanabe herself dancing between the acts. Mr. Frymire wrote of her, ". . . [it] was one of the great artistic thrills of our lives, and our only direct encounter with a true genius."

Ms. Watanabe established Miyoko Watanabe and Company, as a dance company with dancers she trained, presenting Japanese classical dance in public and private performance up and down the East Coast and as far afield as Puerto Rico, Colorado and Texas. For audiences totally unfamiliar with Japanese culture, she developed a unique, often humorous method of explaining the dances. This dance company was later incorporated as IchiFuji-kai Dance Association, a non-profit that celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2011.

Before retiring, Ms. Watanabe trained six who reached the Teacher level, including the first two non-Japanese to be granted Natori (1977) and later Shihan (1987) in the Soke Fujima style: Fujima Kingo (Maggie Newman) and Fujima Kinka (Dodnina Lois-Rubin). She herself was was honored in 1987 with the title “Tokubetsu Shihan” (Teacher Extraordinaire), one of only sixteen in the world at that time, by the Soke Fujima ryu. In 2001 she was honored by the Japanese government, receiving the Foreign Minister’s Award (Gaimudaijin-sho) for her great contributions to cross-cultural understanding.

In addition to the two aforementioned libretti, her publications include Six Kabuki Plays, co-authored and co-translated with Donald Richie, published in 1963 by Hokuseido, Tokyo. This is a major early work of translation of Kabuki plays, cited in hundreds of footnotes and bibliographies. She also wrote the Kabuki portion of Staging Japanese Theatre: Noh and Kabuki: Ikkaku Sennin (The Holy Hermit Unicorn) and Narukami (The Thundergod), co-authored with Dr. John Mitchell, published in 1994 by IASTA, Key West, Florida and distributed by Fordham University Press.

Any one of these accomplishments would be enough for a lifetime, but Ms. Watanabe remained modest, kind and gentle throughout her life, inspiring and encouraging a veritable army of performers and scholars. At her request, she was laid to rest after a private service on August 18, 2012 at Green Hills Memorial Park in Palos Verdes, California. Miyoko Watanabe is survived by three nieces and a nephew.

Miyoko Watanabe

Friday, September 14, 2012

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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Miyoko Watanabe

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