According to Social Media it’s #internationaldanceday or maybe it was yesterday and I missed it?
Anyway, It's a good opportunity for me to introduce my deeply respected my teacher and mentor, and my childhood idol, Yoko Morishita.
I grew up watching her dance.
She was called the “Oriental Pearl”.
This is a video from her heyday in 1981, but even now, I think it holds up as an extremely refined work.
Her partner here, Jorge Donn, was a longtime lead dancer for Maurice Bejart’s Ballet of the 20th Century. He was a dancer of lithe sensuousness and dramatic intensity.
Sadly not long after this, he died suddenly of AIDS.