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Between two worlds: Asian American dancers and choreographers find themselves straddling two cultures--neither of them home.

Article Excerpt
Sixty years ago Asian dance pioneer Michio Ito chose deportation back to Japan over detention in a U.S. internment camp. In 1942 Yuriko, later a Martha Graham legend, taught dance classes and staged the Nutcracker Suite in Lot 60 at the Gila River Relocation Center, where she was interned with 13,000 other American citizens. Sono Osato, star of Ballet Theatre, Broadway, and Hollywood, escaped the anti-Japanese sentiment of the time by dancing under her mother's maiden name, Fitzpatrick, but still wasn't allowed to dance west of the Mississippi.

Today, most dance artists of Asian descent don't experience the same level of discrimination, but they do face obstacles working in this country. The struggles can differ between first-generation refugees and those with century-old family histories in the U.S. Many newly arrived Asian artists speak little English and are far from family and friends. Even those with families here don't tend to get much encouragement from their parents. As Portland, Oregon choreographer Minh Tran says, "My mother would always remind me we risked our lives fleeing the communists in Vietnam. Why would I give up a college scholarship to starve as a dancer?" But he and thousands of others have populated the American dance scene from ballet to Broadway and everywhere in between.

Choreographer Jamie H. J....

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