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Views of Yokohama Harbour
  

Yokohama and the Ohno family
Text Toshio Mizohata

The Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio is in Yokohama, where the Ohno family lives. Ohno Kazuo taught for many years at the missionary schools Kantō Gakuin and Sōshin Jogakuin in Yokohama. His son Ohno Yoshito was born in Tokyo, but attended Kantō Gakuin and led his football team to be runners up in prefectural tournaments. Even while performing as butoh dancers all over the world, their lives were based in Yokohama, and for a long time ran a drugstore in the Silk Center in Yamashitacho. ‘Yokohama Mary’, after whom a documentary has been made, was apparently a regular customer.
 
Of course there was also a lot of work for a butoh dancer in Yokohama. The legendary Admiring La Argentina and Dead Sea were the opening performances for Kannai Hall when it was built in Bashamichi in 1986. The Palace Soars Through the Sky was performed at Akarenga Sōko [Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse] in cooperation with volunteers campaigning for its preservation; at the time it was a huge derelict warehouse, and the performance attracted thousands of spectators. In the 1990s, Ohno Kazuo’s greatest works were filmed at the elegant Theatre Fonte on the outskirts of the city for the Kazuo Ohno Retrospective, and the Kazuo Ohno Festival was held at BankART1929 for over a decade.

Ohno Yoshito once said that “dance suits Yokohama”, but it is also apparent that Yokohama suits the Ohno family. Though he may not have had particularly strong feelings for Yokohama, Yoshito’s life was deeply rooted in the city and he had many close connections with the people there. It is not widely known, but there was a period when Yoshito went out of his way to visit the city hall and newspaper companies every day to set up a memorial museum for his and his wife Etsuko’s benefactor, the writer Osaragi Jirō. Partly as a result of this work, the Osaragi Jirō Memorial Museum was established by the Yokohama Arts Foundation and stands today in a park overlooking the harbour. Preserving the legacy of Osaragi and his wife, for several decades Ohno Yoshito and Etsuko ran a tearoom attached to the museum, the Cafe Muteki. It is still there today, under the management of their eldest daughter Ohno Mikako. Still, it feels strange to think that Ohno Yoshito could once be seen pouring coffee in a cafe that often pops up in magazines as a recommended dating spot. When seen through the lives of the Ohno family, Yokohama appears in a slightly different light.
 

 
 

Filmed by iina naoto
Location: Yokohama Harbour