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Sono Osato hid her Japanese features behind make up and sometimes danced under her mother’s maiden name of Fitzpatrick. She was not allowed to join Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) on tours of Mexico and California, nor was her Japanese American father–released from a Chicago internment camp but still considered an “alien enemy”–allowed by the U.S. government to travel to New York City in 1944 to see his daughter’s triumphant debut as the original Ivy Smith in On the Town.
Osato’s life “was groundbreaking in American dance history,” Melissa Thodos, artistic director of Thodos Dance Chicago, told Dance Studio Life. As the national discussion on racial acceptance in both politics and the arts continues, Thodos Dance is making its contribution with the full-length dance theater piece Sono’s Journey.
The piece will premiere January 9 at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, where in 1934 a 14-year-old Osato successfully auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, becoming the troupe’s youngest-ever American member. (She danced with Ballet Russe until 1940; her career with ABT started soon after that.) In shaping Osato’s story, Thodos visited the now 96-year-old dancer at her New York City home, where they spoke about “the choreographers she’s worked with, her family, and the times she lived in. [Osato’s] thoughts and what she cares about are very much driving the direction of this work,” Thodos said.
Thodos has tackled history through dance before: in collaboration with Ann Reinking, she’s created works about the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan.