Dance Duo: Yuriha and Tatsuha
A Special Duo
Over the next several months, I’ll be posting images of pairs of maiko and/or geiko dancing together, which is something I have photographed only a handful of times over the years.
Why?
First, photographing two maiko is twice as expensive as one, and photographing one is expensive! There has to be a special reason to do it.
In the case of Yuriha and Tatsuha, I did have a special reason. I photographed their misedashi together, a rare double debut, so I wanted to photograph them together a few times since they were so closely connected. You can read about their double misedashi here: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Second, photographing two people together is more than twice as challenging as photographing one, and I am always looking for new ways to challenge myself when it comes to my photography.
A Quick Question
Any photo session needs a good deal of planning to be successful, but it is not always easy to plan for my time with maiko and geiko. I can’t always communicate with them directly. In those cases, I have to ask my friends, the owners of a tea house, and they ask the okiya, the house where maiko and some geiko live.
Sometimes this communication can be almost instantaneous, like when I’m sitting right next to the okamisan and she is texting her contact at an okiya with questions and getting quick replies.
Other times, I might telephone the okamisan’s father, he calls the okiya, the person in charge is not available, he leaves a question, and we get an answer, sometimes sooner, sometimes later.
I knew right after Yuriha’s and Tatsuha’s misedashi that I wanted to photograph them together. I also knew that their okiya, Tama, had “pair kimono,” kimono that had similar designs and colors.
I photographed Mameharu and Manaha one winter (separately), and both wore kimono with the same pattern of snowy branches. The kimono Mameharu wore was black and Manaha’s was burgundy, but they were clearly a set.
I wanted to photograph Yuriha and Tatsuha in a similar set of matching kimonos, but I had questions. Did Tama still have any matching sets of kimono like this? If so, in what colors, and in what months could they be worn?
Maiko wear certain kimono only during certain months, both because of the seasonal motifs on the kimono and the thickness of the kimono itself, which also changes with the seasons.
I was dreading trying to get specific answers to these questions via my usual routes, but fortunately, I didn’t have to.
One evening I was walking near Ponto-cho when I recognized M-san, a former geiko who handles much of Tama’s day-to-day business, waiting in front of a restaurant.
M-san was dressed in everyday clothes, so I knew she wasn’t working. However, since she wasn’t working, I wasn’t sure I should approach her. M-san has always been remarkably helpful to me over the years, so I figured I should just ask.
“Good evening, M-san. I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask a quick question?”
She smiled and said of course.
I explained that I wanted to photograph Yuriha and Tatsuha together, in matching kimono like the snowy ones —
M-san cut me off. “We don’t have those kimono anymore.”
“Do you have any others?”
She thought for a moment. “We do have a set of mizu-iro kimono.” (Mizu-iro literally means water blue or light blue.)
“And what months are those kimono worn?”
“In winter.”
“Great! Thank you very much! I’ll have T-san call you in a few days. Enjoy your evening!”
And that was that.
The Last Day of Their First Year
I wanted to photograph Yuriha and Tatsuha in December, which was a few months off at the time, but December is one of the busiest months for maiko and geiko. Yuriha and Tatsuha were never available on the same day.
I ended up photographing them literally 365 days after I first photographed them during their misedashi. I had photographed them together the previous November on location at a garden, so this was the first time to photograph them inside a tea house.
When I first saw them in the mizu-iro kimono, they immediately reminded me of the kimono maiko and geiko wear during the so odori (group dance) of Miyako Odori.
As I looked through all the photographs I made that day in preparation for writing this post, I was reminded again how different photographing two dancers is from one.
Yuriha and Tatsuha danced “Rokudan Kuzushi” that day, one of the first dances all maiko learn in Gion Kobu (along with “Gion Kouta”).
I have photographed “Rokudan Kuzushi” many times before; in fact, almost every maiko in Gion chooses it to perform it for me the first time I photograph them. I know very well which poses from the dance I like to photograph when only one maiko is dancing.
The gestures that Yuriha and Tatsuha are making at this moment in the dance is one I would probably not even photograph if I were only photographing one maiko. However, there is something about the symmetry of the their gestures, kimono, and the fusuma (sliding doors) behind them that makes this image one of my favorites of the day.
It was a lot of work, but it was worth it!