Kimono #4

“I came from Japan when I was seven. My father was very interested in Japanese dance and drama so he put me in a Japanese dancing school right away. This was how I got started and then they put me in a child part of the kabuki, you know, drama. Whenever I dance or take part in a drama, my mother always used to say, ‘Become that person.’ I try to visualize what that person was. The movement of the dance… it comes out, so my teacher used to tell me even when I was small, ‘You were thinking of that person, weren’t you?’ because she could see the feeling that was coming out of me. [For] drama, kabuki, I was fortunate to be good because I became that person because my mother taught me what kind of person that was so I was very fortunate that I had my mother to teach me.”

         –Kiki Hagimori, shibai performer