Saeko Ichinohe Dance Company records

1966-2014

Saeko Ichinohe (born 1936) was the founder, choreographer, and a dancer of the Saeko Ichinohe Dance Company which she created in 1970. The Company merged traditional Japanese movement, music and costumes with modern Western movement. The Company's activities focused on demonstrations and teaching, and included public performances, lecture-demonstrations, workshops, and special programs. They performed throughout the United States and internationally at theaters, schools, festivals, and community centers. The company closed in 2013.

Ichinohe came to New York on a Fulbright scholarship in 1968 after touring with Ishii Baku's dance group in Japan. She attended The Juilliard School, graduating in 1971. During this period, she studied contemporary dance with Martha Graham, and ballet under Antony Tudor to whom she dedicated the piece Ninja (1987). She won the Boston Ballet's Vestris Prize for Choreography in 1968, with the work Suspicion. The Asia Society director of performing arts, Beate Gordon, arranged to send the Company on a six week tour of the U.S. under the program title "East Meets West," in 1973.

In 1978, with the aim of introducing Japanese culture to students, the company developed performances for children and began to visit public schools in New York City and in other states, as part of the program Young Audiences Inc. Ichinohe also taught dance at the Ballettinstitutt in Oslo from 1971 to 1972, and again in 1992; and as an adjunct at Brooklyn College in 1985 and 1987.

A major work of Ichinohe's was an interpretation of the eleventh century Japanese novel The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari). She began choreographing the story in the early 1990s, and performed the first section in 1995. The full-length piece was premiered for the novel's 1000 year anniversary, in 2000 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Adaptations or variations of the work were often performed by Ichinohe and her company, and became a central element of the repertoire.

The company often performed works choreographed by Ichinohe on Japanese themes, such as the folk tales Urashima Tarō and Saru Kani Kassen; the junihitoe, a form of court dress from the Heian period; artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro, Shiko Munakata, and Paul Klee; and early U.S.-Japan relations (Stars, Stripes, and Cherry Blossoms). Ichinohe has also created choreography for a number of companies, including the Joffrey II dancers (Kami no Yama, 1979), the Eglevsky Ballet (Ninja, 1987), the Atlanta Ballet (Circles, 1981), and Philadanco (Eternal Echo, 1982). She danced Ruth St. Denis's composition Incense, coached by Deborah Zall, for the company's 38th season in 2008.

Ichinohe was the consultant on Japanese Movement for the New York Metropolitan Opera's performances of Madama Butterfly for 20 years, up until their 2005/2006 season, and advised other regional companies on the same production. Ichinohe instigated the annual "Cultural Bridge Award" in 1998, which she presented to individuals who contributed to cultural exchange between the United States and Japan. Ichinohe was recognized for her contribution to the promotion of friendship and mutual understanding between the two countries in 2006, when she was presented with a commendation from the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The company also performed works created by its other members: Jeff Moen, principal dancer of the company from 1991 to 2009, choreographed Oiran, the courtesan section of Utamaro in 2004; and Dreams Wandering Over a Withered Field (2005), based on the poems of Matsuo Bashō. Hector Tello, who danced with the company from 1980 until his death in 1987, choreographed Poem of Evening (1982), Evensong (1987), Sparrows (1982), and Preludes (1986).