Marty Sohl
Charcoal drawing of a ghost forest of phragmite. the choreography of swaying Phragmites australis in the wind stand like messengers and martyrs of a landscape amidst transformation. Corey Watanabe
June Watanabe in Tower Collection, 1990 . To dance with her ghosts, June’s dances became a physical manifestation of her ghost forest. Her choreography speaks to the ghosts of the internment, just as my charcoal sketches speak to the ghosts of the landscape. Both serve as witnesses to tragedy as well as serve as arbiters of its repair.
a process of unfolding Like the sea of phragmites, my grandmother became a silent witness to the ghosts of internment. Four years after their incarceration, she and her family returned to Los Angeles, each with $25 dollars in government repatriation to rebuild their lives. Some people were lucky to have had their belongings looked after throughout the war. For June, she and her family returned to nothing. ‘Ironically, I seemed to feel more isolated upon our return home. Our community in desert had been dispersed, my family and I had to rebuild on our own.’ We stood by gaman , never to complain, never to speak of the pain, to bury the void and rebuild. A generation marred by silence and shame. For my grandmother’s parents and many other Issei of their generation, no one ever spoke of the incarceration. ‘ Shi Kata Ganai – it cannot be helped’, they would say and that was all.
At the age of nine June Watanabe began her ballet studies. Early in her career she both taught and performed professionally. When she married and had three children, she set her dance career aside to raise a family. The concentration camp scars remained. Later in her life she began to unfold the ghosts of incarceration through her choreography. When she was recovering from serious back injury, June described her return to dance as a spiritual calling: ‘It’s miraculous how the mind evolves when we lose something that we always took for granted. It was only when I couldn’t walk that I knew I had to dance again, I needed to dance again. And as I lay paralysed from the waist down I began to feel this mysterious energy from within propelling me forward. It was my gaman speaking from within, though this time not just to overcome adversity, but to find the courage to speak to the scars of the past. The doctors told me it could take nine years to recover, but through lots of pain and rigorous physical therapy I was back on my feet in two.’
30 on site review 47 :: standing still
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