Sada Yacco

Sada Yacco or was a Japanese geisha, actress and dancer.

Early life

Sadayakko Kawakami was born July 18, 1871, the youngest of twelve children. "My grandfather on my mother's side was an assistant magistrate and rather famous, I hear. Our house was in Nihonbashi, right where the Bank of Japan is now." "For generations her family had run the Echizen-ya, a large store that incorporated a currency exchange and a bookshop."

According to Leslie Downer's biography of her, "Sada's mother, Otaka oguma was a notable beauty. In her youth she had worked for a time in the mansion of a , a provincial lord. There she acquired airs and graces and an aristocratic style. Sada's father, Hisajiro Koyama, was such a placid, saintly man that he was nicknamed 'Buddha.' When he married Otaka, he moved into the family house and eventually inherited the business."

The many industrialization projects undertaken by the Meiji government would be financed by heavy taxes and caused soaring inflation, leading the Koyamas and many other families to lose their finances. To help make ends meet the family set up a pawnbroking business. When Sada was four years old, she was sent to work as a maid at the Hamada geisha house in the Yoshichō district of Tokyo. Three years later, Hisajiro died, leading the Hamada's proprietress Kamekichi to adopt Sada as her heir.

"In the winter of 1883, at the age of twelve, the child celebrated her debut as an , literally 'a sake pourer,' an apprentice geisha. She also received her first geisha name. From now on she was to be Ko-yakko or Little Yakko, named after a geisha named Yakko who had been one of the most adored in Tokyo. Kamekichi felt sure that Little Yakko would grow up to be as brilliant a star in her turn."

Career as a geisha

To make sure that Koyakko's career would blossom, Kamekichi sent her to a Shinto priest to learn how to read and write. This was revolutionary for several reasons. Women's education in Japan was only just starting—the first women's school (for noblewomen only) did not open until 1870. "Geisha were expected to be modern, trendsetting women, but such a skill put Sada ahead of the crowd", many geisha and other entertainers being illiterate and, despite their popularity, members of the lower classes.

Koyakko also took secret lessons in judo, and learned how to ride horses and play billiards. "A few years later, as the gossip columnists of the day reported with great excitement, she even took part in professional races. It was another mark of how unconventional and progressive she was." It was on one of these horse rides that she met Momosuke Fukuzawa, then a student at Keio University. She would sustain a short friendship with him that would not be revived again until the 20th century.

In 1886, when Koyakko was fifteen, her was sold to then-Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi. Her coming-of-age led her to adopt the new name of Yakko, and the prestige of her new patron greatly increased her popularity at the teahouses.

"She had also discovered a new talent: acting." As Downer explains, "from 1629, in an attempt to maintain order, kabuki was restricted to male actors. Women performers went underground. The entertainers of the pleasure quarters, who later became known as geisha, performed music and dance of the same genre as kabuki, including dance solos from kabuki plays, but only for private, exclusive customers. So it was a short step for a geisha to act ..Yakko discovered that she much preferred taking the exciting male parts, with plenty of dramatic posing and fighting scenes, rather than playing coy women's parts."

"After three years 888the Prime Minister released Yakko from being his mistress, though he remained her friend and advisor." Instead, by 1891 she was "enjoying the favors" of two patrons and two lovers simultaneously, hoping like many geisha to find a secure position in society via a reliable patron or husband.

"That year everyone was talking about a flamboyant young man who called himself the Liberty Kid. Along with his troupe he performed seditious political dramas, which had been thrilling audiences in Osaka, Kyoto, and beyond, throughout western Japan. His trademark was a catchy satirical song he had composed, which was a huge hit. Now the troupe were on their way to Tokyo. Their first appearances at the prestigious Nakamura-za Theater were heavily booked before they had even arrived in the city." This Liberty Kid, twenty-seven-year-old Otojiro Kawakami, had a "cheeky round face, thick eyebrows, a blunt nose, and a defiant set to his mouth. He looked like an overgrown street urchin spoiling for a fight. His cocky self-confidence, combined with a certain self-depracatingly comical style, was irrestible."

The troupe's popularity was such that Prime Minister Ito commanded a private performance at the Kiraku teahouse, where he had also invited Yakko and four other Yoshichō geisha. Otojiro's troupe friend and fellow womanizer Asajiro Fujisawa would later say that Yakko became instantly drawn to his strong will and authority. "Yakko saw his power and realized what a strong man he was ..She thought, ''I'd like to be with someone this powerful for the rest of my life.'' ..But she had her pride. She decided she would have to make Kawakami a man. Otherwise she would lose face" Abandoning her other men, Yakko devoted herself entirely to Otojiro, continuing to work at parties as a geisha to support him and "keep herself busy." Finally, in October 1893, Yakko and Otojiro were married, with a mutual friend Baron Kentaro Kaneko as the official go-between.

Career as an actress

Despite Otojiro's ability to cater to the Japanese public, he was notoriously hopeless with money and was constantly in trouble with creditors. After three years of ups-and-downs, from short-lived productions and asset seizures to a failed political campaign in 1897, to near-divorce in 1896 after the discovery of Otojiro's illegitimate son Raikichi by a courtesan, Otojiro and Yakko attempted to escape their financial problems via boat to Kobe.

On January 2, 1899 the pair arrived and met Yumindo Kushibiki, a businessman who had made his fortune building a Japanese tea garden in Atlantic City, New Jersey and bringing Japanese entertainment and goods to the United States. Kushibuki, desiring to add authentic theater to his garden's repertoire, offered to sponsor and promote Otojiro's troupe on a continental tour. Otojiro accepted the offer and gathered a total of eighteen people for his troupe: nine other male actors, two child actors (his fourteen-year-old brother Isojiro and his eleven-year-old niece Tsuru), a costume master, a props man, hairdresser, singer, player, bag carrier, and his wife Yakko. Yakko later said she intended to go only as Otojiro's wife, although she practiced some of her performances learned as a geisha should she have to appear onstage.

Setting sail on April 30 that year, the troupe arrived three weeks later in San Francisco, where, unbeknownst to Yakko, Kushibuki had promoted her as the starlet of the troupe, the Japanese equivalent of famed actresses like Sarah Bernhardt. "If they were to perform before Americans, they would need a beautiful actress as the star," he reasoned. She was given the stage name "Sadayakko", and debuted May 25, "perform nghe death scene from ''The Maiden at Dōjō-ji Temple'' (), which she had practiced in Kobe 'so skillfully that there was a storm of applause.'"

This dance () wowed audiences almost immediately – "the ''San Francisco Examiner'' hailed the couple as 'the Henry Irving and Ellen Terry of Japan' ..Yakko's debut had been a triumph. Her dancing lessons since the age of four, her years as a geisha, which was a form of acting in itself, her appearances on the stage in charity performances, had all paid off. Even Otojiro must have recognized that this was no humble little woman. She was the entrancing Yakko, the most celebrated geisha in Japan, adored by prime ministers, sumo heroes, and kabuki stars. She could bewitch anyone – even a theaterful of Westerners who could not understand a word she said."

First tour schedule

United States

June to November 6, 1899:
* Turn Verein Hall, San Francisco (two weeks)
* California Theater, San Francisco (June 18 to 21)
* German Hall, San Francisco (July 21 to 28)
*two theaters in Seattle, one being the Seattle Theater (September 9 to mid-September)
*a theater in Tacoma, Washington (one week)
*a theater in Portland, Oregon (until October 7)
*the Lyric Theatre and Chicago Auditorium (two weeks, from October 22 to November 6)

November 6 to early December, 1899:
*a theater in Grand Rapids, Michigan
*a theater in Muskegon, Michigan
*the Hamblyn Theater in Battle Creek, Michigan
*the Colossal Theater in Adrian, Michigan
*the Noble Opera House in Tiffin, Ohio

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