Love, American style

ROVING EYE Romance is in the air in what we when we.

Yasuko Yokoshi has a brilliant way of distilling her art to the barest of essences. In the new what we when we, Yokoshi subverts cultural associations—both Japanese and American—to present a hauntingly personal and subtly sexy look at love. Inspired by Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and her three-year experience working with Masumi Seyama VI, a master teacher of the Kanjyuro Fujima style of traditional Japanese dance, Yokoshi wrestles with issues of authenticity by staging a work based in the minimal vocabulary of Kabuki Su-odori dance. A quintet for Yokoshi, Ryutaro Mishima, Kaz Nakamura, Hiromi Naruse and Matsuhide Nakashima, what we when we celebrates its premiere at Danspace Project this week. Born in Hiroshima, but based in New York since 1981, the fascinatingYokoshi discussed her intense creative process.

Time Out New York: When did Raymond Carver and Kabuki mesh in your imagination?

Yasuko Yokoshi: I’m a huge fan of Carver. Because of my English, his writing is easy to read, and his world is something I can really relate to. I think my work is oftentimes that spare. So, when I read the story, the first thing that came to my mind was, I want to make a dance film. It was way before I learned traditional Japanese Kabuki dance. My ex-boyfriend got a teaching gig in Tokyo and I went with him, and that’s how I encountered a Kabuki dance master. When I learned this form—it’s the Kanjyuro Fujima style, which is very understated, subtle, minimalistic—I thought, These two things come from the same place.

TONY: How did you meet Masumi Seyama VI?

YY: An actress friend of mine studies with her. It is a very exclusive school, and she’s doesn’t take students from the outside, but my friend told her about my work and the master teacher was always interested to meet me. When we met, we just clicked right away.

TONY: What is she like?

YY: She’s more than a mother. That absolute love she gives me—I don’t know where it comes from. We just got obsessed with other. We call each other vampires because we sucked so much out of each other. The last time my company was there, she worked so hard that she got a heart attack. She’s sick now.

TONY: Does she know that your show is finally happening?

YY: Yeah! She’s going to her master’s graveyard and praying all the time. It’s all she thinks about, I am sure. We are totally connected.

TONY: Didn’t she take you to his grave once, too?

YY: Yes. She asked if she could teach a very heavy piece to me, which is “permissible art.” There is only a very selective group who gets to learn it. My teacher doesn’t even show her master’s dances to her students; she doesn’t want them to be influenced by his dancing. Anyhow, I got hold of a tape.

TONY: How exactly?

YY: Her assistant, who lives with her, gave it to me. [Laughs] Without the permission of the teacher. I watched it, and I was blown away. I was like, Shit. I’ve got to learn this thing. My teacher said, “I’ll give you anything you want. What dance do you want to learn?” I told her that I wanted this piece, and she said, “You’ve got good taste, but no. You’re going to only suffer from learning.” I went home with the tape, and I copied exactly how he moved. When I returned to Tokyo, I told her that I had learned the choreography. I showed it, and she was speechless. She said, “You have no technique. None. But you’ve got the essence. I have to do something about it.” That day, she took me to her master’s graveyard; on the way home, she said, “All right. The master said, ‘Yes, go ahead and teach it.’” And then the training started. It was brutal.

TONY: What made you want to make a piece about love?

YY: It’s my personal view on love and my experience of surviving it. All of my work is about loss. One way of losing love is to have someone take it away from you in a violent way; the other is if the person dies. But for me, death means that the person is no longer who you were in love with. So in one very serious relationship that I had, one person was taken away from me, and in the other, the person who I loved was no longer the person I knew. Death. Somehow Carver’s story captivated me because of my experience.

TONY: You’ve said that this was the hardest dance you’ve ever made. Why didn’t you give up? 

YY: This was a big test for me. If I couldn’t finish it, I was pretty much ready to quit. There were many reasons: insecurity as an artist, insecurity as a performer, insecurity as a woman. It had to be completed. But it’s nerve-racking! [Laughs] I have only four days to show it. When the communication among the five of us doesn’t jibe, you just see things go down the drain. But that also excites me. My dad was a gambler, and I’m a big gambler. This is art: It should be live or die.

Yasuko Yokoshi performs at Danspace Project Thursday 23 through Sunday 26.