“Come in,” Yuriko said, opening her front door partway to prevent her cat from escaping. I slid through the narrow space, blocking the door’s entrance with my foot. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’m not quite finished dressing. I’ll be right out.”
I put my camera bag down on a low bench and began to survey Yuriko’s living room. An assortment of Japanese masks, miniature figurines, and geisha dolls populated shelves and cases, lining the walls. The furniture consisted of one blue upholstered chair flanked by several floor cushions with back supports, like the kind you take to the beach. On the wall behind the blue chair hung Barbara Morgan’s famous photograph of Martha Graham known as “The Kick.” I was admiring a beautiful hand-sewn kimono displayed on another wall when Yuriko walked into the room.
“You have some lovely things.”
“Many of those dolls belonged to my mother. They are over a hundred years old. Come, please sit,” she said gesturing me toward the blue chair. “I prefer to sit on the floor.”
“Yuriko, when did you first know that you’d become a dancer?”
“I knew it from my very first dance step. I was six years old. I was young but I knew. I’ve had a most interesting life. I was born in San Jose, California, in 1920, but was sent to live with relatives in Japan when I was three. My mother thought she could save me from the influenza that had killed two of my sisters and my father. I returned to California when I was six, and it was around that time that my mother decided that I should become an artist. She started me in music, then dance, and finally painting. But dance was the thing I enjoyed most. I went back to Japan again when I was nine, and was left in the care of the great dancer, Konami Ishi.”
“Was she responsible for your early training?”
“Yes, she taught me rhythm and movement based on Dalcroze’s Eurythmics, which was very popular at the time. I remember walking in circles with corresponding arm movements and patterns. So from a very early age I understood the relationship of rhythm to movement. By the age of ten, I was performing in Konami’s dance recitals and in her tours of the Orient. Konami was very influenced by what they called ‘European Dance’—a sort of ballet without shoes in the style of Mary Wigman and Harald Kreutzberg. After graduating from high school I returned to California and studied with Dorothy Lyndell in Los Angeles. She taught ballet and modern dance and was the first to encourage me to choreograph.”
“Sounds like your dance life was preordained.”
“From as far back as I can remember my life was directed towards the dance. Invitations and opportunities to dance just presented themselves. I didn’t have to plan anything. I never dreamed of becoming famous. I only wanted to be a really good dancer.
“But my plans were interrupted when World War II broke out. The Japanese Americans were rounded up and put into relocation camps. We really didn’t know what would become of us. I was one of ten thousand to be taken to Gila River Relocation Camp in Arizona. Forced into trains, we were treated like prisoners and hidden from the public behind drawn curtains. As we passed communities, no one on the outside really saw what was happening.
“It was 110 degrees when we arrived at the camp. Each one of us was handed an army cot and blanket and then assigned to a barrack. I remember rows after rows of barracks separated only by toilets and laundry rooms. And the spiders … there were tarantulas and scorpions everywhere.”
“Did you want to rebel or run away?”
“Rebel?” she shouted. “How can you rebel? We understood that this could not be helped. Our Japanese sensibility accepted that there was nothing one could do. You just took it.”
“What became of your dancing?”
“Here in this barren part of Arizona the children had nothing to do. I thought maybe I could contribute something so I asked the authorities if I could teach dance to the children. They said yes and allowed me to turn one of the barracks into a dance studio, complete with ballet barre. Despite our imprisonment, we lived in a functioning community. Professionals like doctors and teachers got paid for their work. My salary was nineteen dollars a month. I had about a hundred students, only girls and some of the mothers. We gave performances and made our own costumes out of crepe paper and tablecloths. We even danced the Nutcracker Suite.”
“How long were you confined in Gila Relocation Camp?”
“I was there for a year and a half and then the East Coast opened up and some of us evacuees were allowed to resettle. In order to leave the camp one had to be given clearance from the Army and Navy Intelligence, as well as the FBI. Sponsorship by another person was required. I was one of the first to leave, but the camps would stay open for another three, maybe four years. When I applied for resettlement I asked to go to Detroit because I had a girlfriend there, but Clara Clayman, one of the camp’s administrators advised me to go to New York City. She said, ‘If you want to be a dancer, you have to go to New York. That’s the center of dance.’ So I changed course. Clara agreed to sponsor me and arranged a job for me working as a seamstress. The authorities gave me fifty dollars and I saved fifty dollars from teaching. And so with a hundred dollars and my one suitcase, I arrived at the Phoenix train station. I was just about to cross the street to buy my ticket when I noticed the light signal.” Yuriko paused. “It flashed red … turned green … then red … green…. I stood there for I don’t know how long, mesmerized by the flashing colored lights, and then it hit me: I’m outside! I’m free,” she said in a whisper, her eyes wide. “I’m free! The red and green flashing lights symbolized my freedom and my future. I was completely overcome with emotion.”
“When did you arrive in New York City?”
“I arrived in New York City on September 23, 1943.”
“You remember the exact date?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I will never forget that date. I found a rooming house on Sixth Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets near the shop where I was to work as a seamstress. About a month later, I borrowed a phone book and looked up the studio addresses of Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, and Martha Graham. I had seen them perform in Los Angeles before I was sent away. I loved their work but wasn’t sure which of their techniques would be best for me. I planned to visit each of their studios. So, one day after work, I took the Fifth Avenue bus to 14th Street. Standing on the street corner I looked at my list of addresses and saw that I was closest to Martha’s studio on 15th Street, so I went there first. Hanya was on 10th Street and Doris’s was on 16th Street. I went up in the elevator to the ——— floor and saw a glass door with a sign that read: MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE STUDIO. I knocked and a lady dressed all in black opened the door.
“‘I’m Martha Graham, please come in,’ she said. I didn’t expect to meet Martha; I was just coming to get her class schedule. ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked. I told her that I’d just been released from a Japanese-American relocation camp in Arizona. ‘Have you ever danced before?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Here, I have a leotard. Why don’t you put it on so I can see how you move.’ ‘Oh no. I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘I’m not in condition.’ ‘But I just want to see you move,’ she said. ‘No, no,’ I persisted. ‘All right, I’m teaching tomorrow, come to one of my classes.’ ‘Oh, no, no,’ I cried. ‘I can’t do that. I do not know your technique. To take from the master, I
