Kawakami Sadayakko

Kawakami Sadayakko

Kawakami Sadayakko ( Japanese 川 上 貞 奴 ; born July 18, 1871 in Tokyo , Japanese Empire , † December 7, 1946 in Atami , Japan ) was a Japanese actress and dancer .

Life

Kawakami Sadayakko and Otojirō

Kawakami Sadayakko was born as Koyama Sada ( 小山 貞 ) and received training as a geisha . She fell on the Japanese politician Itō Hirobumi , who made sure that she continued her education. In 1894 she married the theater owner Kawakami Otojirō , to whom she had been introduced by Itō.

Under the stage name Sada Yacco , she worked at the Kawakami Theater, although at the time it was not yet appropriate to be on stage as a woman with men. In 1899, the theater company was the first theater company from Japan to tour the world. After performances in San Francisco , it went on to New York City . This was followed by performances in Paris at the World Exhibition in 1900 , where the dancer Loïe Fuller arranged the lighting effects. Further performances were in 1901 in Berlin, where the painter Max Slevogt painted it together with her foster son Raikichi, and in other European cities.

After the death of her husband in 1911, Sadayakko lived with Fukuzama Momosuke in Nagoya , although his wife was still alive. Their common home is now one of the museums in Nagoya. There the dancer founded a textile company after she had finished her dance career in 1918. She also founded a theater school for children in Tokyo. Now and then she performed herself.

Sadayakko's dance style influenced modern American dance, for example that of Ruth St. Denis . She died in Atami at the age of 75.

literature

• Lesley Downer : Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha who Bewitched the West . Gotham Books, New York City, USA 2003.
• Peter Pantzer : Japanese theater heaven over Europe's theater heaven: Kawakami Otojiro, Sadayakko and their troupe on tour through Central and Eastern Europe 1901/1902 , Iudicum, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89129-920-6 .

Web links

Commons : Sadayakko Kawakami  - collection of images

• Website of the Futaba Museum in Nagoya with a biography of the dancer (en.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hope for a good harvest in FAZ of May 18, 2013, page 35

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Kawakami is the family name, Sadayakko the first name.