Akiko Tachibana, whose real name was Saku Fukuda, came to Tokyo from Utsunomiya city in the Tochigi Prefecture. “My mother was an elementary school teacher,” her daughter Asami Maki recalls, “and her career change from schoolteacher to ballet dancer was big news at that time. She was a girl who dared to walk in the traditional Hakama [the long pleated skirt worn over a kimono] school uniform with a parasol, which was banned by the school. She liked to stand out. This was a career turn against her parents, and she performed on stage after only three months or so under Miss Pavlova. She was a little prepared for the ballet by her experience teaching gymnastic dance and music.”
In those days, ballet was not well known in Japan and generally misunderstood. It was imagined to be akin to the circus—certainly not something for girls of good families to learn. Tachibana's decision to pursue serious ballet training could not help but raise eyebrows.
“There were two lineages of ballet education,” recounts Maki, “the lineage of Elena Pavlova and the lineage of G. V. Rosi. Most of the ballet dancers came from Pavlova's school. Olga Sapphire taught at the Nihon Theater, but it was Miss Elena's teaching that had the most influence. Another thing to mention about this era in Japan was that modern dance was considered to be superior to ballet. My mother in fact visited the studio of modern dance pioneer Baku Ishii and wanted to start classes, but he was not there—so it was just by chance that she went to Pavlova to learn ballet.”
It was natural that Tachibana, who already had some training in the rhythmic exercises of Jacques Dalcroze, would be drawn to the artistry of Baku Ishii. (note 3) Ishii, a founding figure of the Western contemporary dance tradition in Japan, had seen performances by Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman, and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Europe. That, perhaps, Tachibana pursued ballet training because Ishii was not at his studio reflects the fluid dance situation that existed in Japan: modern dance and ballet, both of which were introduced around the same time, were viewed as complementary forms of Western art dance—especially as set apart from Japanese traditional dance (Nihon Buho).
As it turned out, however, Tachibana’s experience with Dalcroze Eurthymics facilitated her immersion in ballet. She became the first Japanese ballet dancer to dance on pointe, inspiring Yaoko Kaitani and other young girls.
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