Yuriko Kikuchi (née Amemiya, February 2, 1920 – March 8, 2022), known to audiences by her
stage name
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...
Yuriko, was an American dancer and choreographer who was best known for her work with the
Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.
Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She wa ...
Dance Company.
Early life and career
Yuriko Amemiya was born to Chiyo (Furuya) Amemiya and Morishige Amemiya in
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
in 1920, but her mother sent her to Japan in 1923 in order to escape an influenza epidemic in the United States that killed her father and sisters. At age six, she returned to California but was later left in Japan during a 1929 visit after her mother's second marriage ended.
[ She began her dance training with Konami Ishii in ]Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, and danced with the Konami Ishii Dance Company from 1930 to 1937. In 1937, Yuriko returned to the United States and joined Dorothy Lyndall's Junior Dance Company in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
Internment
From 1941 to 1943, due to the signing of Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...
, Yuriko was interned
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
along with other Japanese American
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
s at the Gila River War Relocation Center
The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was lo ...
in Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, where she taught dance. She was released in September 1943, whereupon she immediately moved to New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.[
]
Later career
Yuriko joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1944 and continued with the company for the next 50 years. She danced in the first production of Graham's masterpiece, ''Clytemnestra'', as well as in ''Appalachian Spring
''Appalachian Spring'' is a musical composition by Aaron Copland that was premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity as an orchestral suite. The music, scored for a thirteen-member chamber orchestra, was created upon c ...
'', ''Cave of the Heart
''Cave of the Heart'' is a one-act ballet choreographed by Martha Graham to music (''Medea'' suite) by Samuel Barber.Martha Graham Dance Company Repertory http://marthagraham.org/press-presenters2/repertory It was first performed on May 10, 1946, w ...
'' and '' Dark Meadow''. She has also reconstructed a number of Graham's dances such as ''Primitive Mysteries
''Primitive Mysteries'' is a modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Louis Horst. Graham also designed the original costumes. The piece premiered on February 2, 1931 at the Craig Theatre in New York City. From the first perfo ...
''.[Arlene Croce, ''Writing in the Dark, Dancing in the New Yorker''. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. Print. pp. 194-195.]
In addition to her work in modern dance
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
, Yuriko performed on Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in the original productions of ''The King and I
''The King and I'' is the fifth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel '' Anna and the King of Siam'' (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the childre ...
'' (1951–54) and ''Flower Drum Song
''Flower Drum Song'' was the eighth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on the 1957 novel, ''The Flower Drum Song'', by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee. It premiered on Broadway in 1958 and was then performed in the ...
'' (1958–60) and directed the 1977-78 Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
revival of ''The King and I''. She has also performed on television, and in motion pictures and danced to works by Halim El-Dabh
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who ha ...
and Eugene Lester
Eugene F. Lester (1871-1940) was an American attorney and judge known as Chief Justice of the Oklahoma (US) Supreme Court from 1931 to 1932.
Early life
Eugene F. Lester was born August 7, 1871, in Lebanon, Tennessee to Preston S. and Elizabeth (n ...
. She taught famous dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...
, Reiko Sato
Reiko Sato ( ja, レイコ・佐藤; December 19, 1931 – May 28, 1981) was an American dancer and actress.
Early life
Sato was born in Los Angeles, California, to an issei Zen Buddhist priest, Ken-ichi Sato and his wife Chieko. She and he ...
, and Miki Orihara
Miki may refer to:
Places
*Miki, Hyōgo, a city in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
*Miki, Kagawa, a town in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan
*Miki, Azerbaijan, a village in Astara Rayon, Azerbaijan
People
*Miki (given name)
*Miki (surname)
*Miki Núñez (born ...
.
She formed her own modern dance company in 1967, which remained active until 1973.
Sources from the time frequently confuse this Yuriko with Japan-born Yuriko Kimura
Yuriko Kimura (木村百合子) is a modern dancer, and was a primary dancer for the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1967 to 1985. Various dance critics, such as Anna Kisselgoff and Clive Barnes from the New York Times, who often reviewed Yuriko ...
, who danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1967-1985.[McGehee, Helen (1993). "Review of Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham". ''Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research''. 11 (1): 99–103. doi:10.2307/1290612. ]ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
0264-2875. Kimura joined the company a decade after Yuriko, and so they were often referred to as "Big Yuriko" (Kiguchi) and "Little Yuriko" (Kimura).
Personal life
Yuriko married Charles Kikuchi in 1946 and had two children. She died in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
on March 8, 2022, one month after her 102nd birthday.
Awards
In 1967, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in choreography. In 1991, she won a Bessie Award
The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...
. Yuriko was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Boston Conservatory
Boston Conservatory at Berklee (formerly The Boston Conservatory) is a private performing arts conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, music, and theater.
Boston Conservatory was founded ...
in 2006.
Yuriko received the Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.
Films
*1956 – ''The King and I
''The King and I'' is the fifth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel '' Anna and the King of Siam'' (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the childre ...
''
*1957 – ''A Dancer's World''
*1960 – ''Yuriko: Creation of a Dance''
References
External links
Yuriko interview.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yuriko
1920 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American women
21st-century American women
American actresses of Japanese descent
American centenarians
American choreographers
American dancers of Asian descent
American female dancers
Actresses from New York City
Actresses from San Jose, California
Japanese-American internees
People from Manhattan
Women centenarians