Research Catalog

Interview with Yuriko.

Title
  1. Interview with Yuriko. April 26, May 1, 3, 5, and 9, 1978, 1978.
Published by
  1. 1978
Author
  1. Yuriko, 1920-2022

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Available by appointment at Performing Arts Research Collections Dance

Vol/datedisc13FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc13Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc12FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc12Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc11FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc11Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc10FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc10Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 9FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 9Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 8FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 8Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 7FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 7Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 6FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 6Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 5FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 5Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 4FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 4Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 3FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 3Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 2FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 2Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance
StatusVol/datedisc 1FormatAudioAccessUse in libraryCall number*MGZTL 4-556 disc 1Item locationPerforming Arts Research Collections Dance

Details

Additional authors
  1. Tobias, Tobi
Description
  1. 13 sound discs (approximately nine hours and 11 minutes) : digital; 4 3/4 in.
Summary
  1. Disc 1 (approximately 48 minutes), April 26, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her family and childhood in California and in Japan; her early music and dance training, in California; her dance training and touring with Konami Ishii in Japan; the loneliness she felt during her years in Japan and how this affected the upbring of her own children; her return to the United States and determination to be as American as possible; her teacher Dorothy Lyndall; teaching [Graham] technique; Martha Graham's recognition of the inevitability of change; Graham's dancers and the way technique is taught today as compared with Yuriko's preferred approach; the licensing of the teaching of Graham technique including Yuriko's view that Graham technique should be in the public domain; her compulsory evacuation to [an internment camp in] Arizona [ends abruptly but continues on disc 2].
  2. Disc 2 (approximately 50 minutes). April 26, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II, including her own experience; her move to New York; supporting herself as a seamstress; her impressions at that time of the choreography of Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm, respectively; Graham including how Yuriko came to meet and study with her; their first impressions of each other; Graham's early recognition of her abilities; learning Graham's works and joining Graham's company; Louis Horst, as a teacher and as a person; his artistic mentoring of Graham; Graham's working methods including with respect to her works Dark meadows and Sarabande [ends abruptly].
  3. Disc 3 (approximately 47 minutes). May 1, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her husband including how they first met; their children and family life; why she uses only her first name, professionally; the "other Yuriko" (Yuriko Kimura); some of the other dancers in Graham's company when Yuriko joined; Graham's policy of distancing herself from her dancers' personal lives; Graham's work Appalachian spring including how it may have reflected Graham's feelings about Erick Hawkins at the time; Graham's relationship with Louis Horst; how Appalachian spring has changed in performance; Graham's works Clytemnestra and Seraphic dialogue; more on the making of Appalachian spring including Graham's explanation in rehearsal of the characters' motivations [ends abruptly but continues on disc 4].
  4. Disc 4 (approximately 47 minutes). May 1, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about the making of Appalachian spring; Isamu Noguchi and his work for Graham; Graham's work Dark meadow; Graham's choreographic process including her give and take with her dancers; Graham's complete identification with whatever character she was performing; Graham's need to dance; Graham's work, Angels [Diversion of angels] as one of the first in which Graham did not dance; how Graham technique has changed over the years [ends abruptly but continues on disc 5].
  5. Disc 5 (approximately 12 minutes). May 1, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about Graham technique, in particular the spiral [ends abruptly].
  6. Disc 6 (approximately 44 minutes). May 3, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her feelings regarding the creating of this oral history including the difficulty of articulating physical memories; Martha Graham's presentation of herself as a priestess of the art of dance and her dancers' corresponding idolization of her; Yuriko's personal relationship with Graham; briefly, Bertram Ross; the strong female roles in Graham's work as arising from Graham's character; Graham's work Cave of the heart, in particular Graham's solo as Medea in the snake dance; audience responses to Graham's work; studying ballet with Anatole Oboukhoff [ends abruptly but continues on disc 7].
  7. Disc 7 (approximately 53 minutes). May 3, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about Anatole Oboukhoff; studying ballet with Muriel Stuart; Yuriko's conscious separation of her study of ballet and her study of modern dance; the positioning of the upper torso in ballet as compared with its positioning in modern dance; Yuriko's approach to teaching technique; Rudolf Nureyev in Appalachian spring; Graham's use of poetic images when teaching; more on Yuriko's approach to teaching technique; whether Cave of the heart may have arisen from events in Graham's personal life relating to Louis Horst and Erick Hawkins; other dancers in the role of Medea; Graham's Clytemnestra; Graham's work Canticle [for innocent comedians]; her reasons for leaving Graham's company; her sense that Graham wanted her to leave; the possibility of reconstructing certain works, for example Moon [Yuriko's role in Graham's Canticle for innocent comedians]; [ends abruptly but continues on disc 8].
  8. Disc 8 (approximately 41 minutes). May 3, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about the role of the Moon [in Martha Graham's Canticle for innocent comedians] including the extent to which she created the choreography for this role; reconstructing and teaching this role to her daughter [Susan Kikuchi]; working on the reconstruction with Eugene Lester; Graham's advising Susan Kikuchi not to perform the roles of her mother, Yuriko; reasons the revival was eventually canceled; Yuriko's relationship with Graham in the period after she left the company; their relationship while Yuriko was in the company; Yuriko's commercial work, in the musical comedies The king and I and The flower drum song, and how this affected her relationship with Graham.
  9. Disc 9 (approximately 37 minutes). May 5, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her experience performing the role of Eliza in Jerome Robbins' dance Small house of Uncle Thomas in the musical comedy The king and I; auditioning for Robbins; her experience with racial discrimination when she auditioned for the cast of the musical comedy Carousel; more on the audition for Robbins; Robbins' choreographing of the dance including an anecdote about Richard Rodgers' advice to Robbins; working with Robbins; staging the current revival including her daughter's taking on her old role as Eliza; more on the original production of The king and I including how she felt about the show's great success; Gertrude Lawrence and (briefly) Yul Brenner as performers, in particular what she describes as their star quality; performing the role of Eliza; her goal of achieving what she considers a perfect performance [ends abruptly but continues on disc 10].
  10. Disc 10 (approximately 57 minutes). May 5, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her perfect performance while on tour with Graham in Helsinki; her revelatory visit to Delphi, Greece and how it influenced her dancing including her performance in Helsinki; the channeling of her former hunger to perform into teaching and the giving of her knowledge and experience to young dancers; Yuriko's and her daughter Susan's experience with the musical comedy The flower drum song; buying and renovating a house in Brooklyn; her role of Eve in Martha Graham's Embattled garden including Graham's design of her costume; Graham's work Clytemnestra in particular Yuriko's interpretation of her role as Iphigenia [ends abruptly].
  11. Disc 11 (approximately 24 minutes). May 5, 1978. Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about Martha Graham's feelings about relinquishing her roles; the 1965 revival of Primitive mysteries, in particular Yuriko's dancing the role of the Virgin; Graham's coaching her in the role; the question as to whether Graham's choreography can be performed successfully by other dancers.
  12. Disc 12 (approximately 46 minutes). May 9, 1978. [In the first 10:30 minutes, sound quality is poor due to very low volume; following a gap from 10:30 - 11:30, volume returns to normal, and sound quality is subsequently good.] Yuriko speaks with Tobi Tobias about her relationship with Martha Graham including the incident that led to Yuriko's breaking with Graham for seven years; her feelings about assisting with revivals of Graham's work; choreographing; Graham technique, in particular its teaching; the importance of understanding the concepts behind the movements; her thoughts as to whether studying Graham technique might be useful to a ballet dancer [ends abruptly but continues on disc 13].
  13. Disc 13 (approximately 45 minutes). May 9, 1978. Yuriko continues to speak with Tobi Tobias about teaching Graham technique; her own choreography; her house on Block Island as a place to rest and think; her international teaching activities; more on her own choreography; briefly, Paul Taylor; Merce Cunningham; racial integration in the Martha Graham Dance Company and Graham's refusal to perform where her dancers would be subject to discrimination; Yuriko's thoughts about the future.
Alternative title
  1. Dance Oral History Project.
Subject
  1. Graham, Martha
  2. Graham, Martha > Clytemnestra
  3. Graham, Martha > Canticle for innocent comedians
  4. Graham, Martha > Dark meadow
  5. Yuriko, 1920-2022
  6. Graham, Martha > Embattled garden
  7. Japanese Americans > Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945
  8. Robbins, Jerome
  9. Kimura, Yuriko (Dancer)
  10. Cunningham, Merce
  11. Musicals > The King and I
  12. Modern dance > Technique > Graham
  13. Dance teachers
  14. Martha Graham Dance Company
  15. Minorities > Performing arts
  16. Oboukhoff, Anatole
  17. Audiotapes > Yuriko
  18. Stuart, Muriel, 1900-1991
  19. Dance > Study and teaching
  20. Graham, Martha > Appalachian spring
  21. Graham, Martha > Cave of the heart
  22. Horst, Louis
Call number
  1. *MGZTL 4-556
Note
  1. Interview with Yuriko conducted by Tobi Tobias on April 26 and May, 3, 5, and 9, 1978 for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division's Oral History Project. The location of the interview is not specified but almost certainly was in New York City.
  2. Title supplied by cataloger.
  3. Sound quality is good except for the first approximate 10:30 minutes of disc 11 in which the volume is very low. The recording is marred by extraneous noise including "tape hiss" and occasional short gaps. However, except as noted with respect to disc 11, the speakers' voices are always easily audible.
Funding (note)
  1. The conservation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.
Author
  1. Yuriko, 1920-2022, interviewee.
Title
  1. Interview with Yuriko. April 26, May 1, 3, 5, and 9, 1978, 1978.
Production
  1. 1978
Type of content
  1. spoken word
Type of medium
  1. audio
Type of carrier
  1. audio disc
Event
  1. Recorded by Tobi Tobias 1978, April 26 and May 1, 3, 5, and 9, New York (N.Y.)
Funding
  1. The conservation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.
Original version
  1. Original format: five sound reels (approximately nine hours and 11 minutes); 5 inches; polyester, half-track; 1 7/8 ips.; transferred to wav file and compact disc formats in 2013.
Local note
  1. For transcript of interview: see *MGZMT 5-556.
  2. Former classmark: *MGZT 5-556
Added author
  1. Tobias, Tobi, interviewer.
Research call number
  1. *MGZTL 4-556
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