Instructor’s 10-year effort brings her Nihon Buyo dancers on stage
Cultural News, February 2006

 

10-year efforts by Nihon Buyo instructor Bando Hidesomi (center) are blooming into her first major stage at Aratani/Japan America Theatre. Her dancers are (from left clockwise) Julianne Emiko Oshinomi, Lauren Mariko Gima, Kamryn Akemi Nagami, Kathy Midori Yamamoto, Lauren Minako Yamashita (Cultural News Photo)

  

By Gavin Kelley

 

     The art of Nihon Buyo (Japanese Traditional Dance) may be rare, and to have a Nisei teacher in her early 30’s even more rare, but Bando Hidesomi of Monterey Park is just that.  With a title of “The Four Seasons of Japan: Through the Art of Nihon Buyo,” her first major performance is coming up on Saturday, March 4, from 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre in Little Tokyo that features 15 of her current students and three well-respected guest Nihon Buyo masters. The Los Angeles audience will get the opportunity to see this rare art and artist in action.

     Attending Nihon Buyo class for the first time at the age of three, Hidesomi continues to this day to learn from the South Bay-based Nihon Buyo instructor Bando Mitsuhiro, who will be one of the guest performers in the show along with her other Nihon Buyo masters Bando Hideko (daughter of Bando Mitsugoro IX) and Bando Mitsujiro from Tokyo.

     It’s been 10 years since Hidesomi returned to Los Angeles in 1996 from her four-year apprentice training in Tokyo. From this training, she brings some of the traditional formalities to her one-on-one classes in Southern California.

    With two studios, one out of her own home in Monterey Park and one out of her parents’ home in Torrance, Hidesomi casts a wide net.  She also teaches a weekly after-school Nihon Buyo program at El Marino Language (Elementary) School in Culver City.

    Her current students, who will be featured in the upcoming 10-piece
performance, range in age from 4 to 17.  Outside of her multi-cultural after school program at El Marino, where she sees 20 to 25 students who are involved in the Japanese Language Immersion Program, Hidesomi’s students so far are Japanese, Japanese American or have Japanese descendents.

    “Originally it’s the parents who want them to start learning,” Hidesomi
explained the initial reason behind the enrollment of her students.  For the
youngest that learn, she said, “to some it’s just a fun thing, getting a chance to wear kimono and yukata, or they love to put on the make-up.

    “And my high school students learn Nihon Buyo is something different and are really interested.  Others, like teachers at school, appreciate the discipline that the dancers learned in class,” Hidesomi explained. While her current oldest student is a senior in high school, she does take on adults too. 

 

     This up-coming performance on March 4 is special to Hidesomi for a number of reasons, but “mainly for my students.  They never really have the opportunity to perform in such a big theater,” explained Hidesomi.

     To prepare them, she’s been telling her students “dancing good is important, but to have them dance with a heart that they danced their best, tried their best and did there best, is what matters the most, and I hope the audience will pick up on that. If we could relay to them, the young generation would keep up the culture, I’ll be very happy.”

Starting dance lessons at the age of three

     Born as Kathleen Mihoko Hitara, a daughter of Mike Yasuo Hirata from Fukuoka prefecture and KeikoHirata from Hiroshima prefecture, Japan, Hidesomi started Nihon Buyo lessons under Bando Mitsuhiro of Harbor City at three years of age.  While it was her parents who encouraged Hidesomi to continue Nihon Buyo at an early age, she found that “I enjoyed it a lot.”

    By the time Hidesomi reached junior high school age, she started going to Japan every summer, where she began learning from Bando Hideko, a younger sister of Bando School Headmaster Bando Mitsugoro X, who eventually “adopted” Hidesomi from Mitsuhiro. (In Japanese Buyo tradition, the relationships between apprentices and instructors are considered as the resemblance of children and parents.)

    Under the guidance of both mentors, Hidesomi continued Nihon Buyo all through her high school.  During her school years in Torrance at North High School, her mentors both told her that if she wanted to continue to practice and learn Nihon Buyo, she should go to university in Japan.

     “I think my parents didn’t really push me either way,” explained Hidesomi. “They wanted me to make my own decision.” Hidesomi chose to go to Japan and enrolled in Keio University while living under the care of Bando Mistugoro IX as an apprentice. “They were surprised that I was American,” Hidesomi recalled an episode in Tokyo.  “A lot of my university friends were surprised that a foreigner was going to Japan to learn traditional dance.”

    Learning Nihon Buyo in Japan, Hidesomi found that the classes were stricter than in Los Angeles, “It’s a little bit more formal in Japan,” she explained. “From stage manners to etiquette during practice.”  It was during her stay in Japan, Hidesomi earned her Shihan title, or teaching credentials.

 

     Gavin Kelley is a Los Angeles-based writer who is currently working on a compilation of short-stories.  He worked at the Rafu Shimpo as a staff writer and assistant editor under the guidance of Takeshi Nakayama from 2000 through 2001.