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Shugensha Hamako (1881-1937)
Jun. 13th, 2025 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiShugensha Hamako was born in 1881 in Yokohama, where her father was general manager of the Nozawaya department store; her original family name was Ogiwara. She began studying the koto at the age of four, mastering numerous different styles of performance and also showing an interest from early on in merging koto music and dance. Among others, she worked with the “father of modern koto music” Miyagi Michio. As well as becoming a leading koto performer, she wrote and arranged music in various styles.
In temperament she was extremely serious and meticulous, but with a dry sense of humor, a pampered only daughter of a rich family (who at age sixteen was given 100 yen as allowance for a trip to Tokyo, an absurdly huge sum equivalent to something like two or three thousand dollars now; she bought a boxful of books and hired someone to carry it home for her). Her hobby was collecting Japanese swords. She had a weak stomach and dined for years on steak and exactly six grapes, prepared by her mother.
Among Hamako’s musical compositions were a part of the poet Kujo Takeko’s “dance poem” “Four Seasons” as well as a section of the literary figure Tsubouchi Shoyo’s play New Urashima, both of which were well received. She also composed music for the dancer Takahashi Motoko (Fujima Kansoga), a close friend sometimes referred to as a lover in Hamako’s diary. After losing her home in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, she lodged with Tsubouchi’s family and taught koto under the professional name Shugensha, acquiring numerous devoted students, mostly women. She died in 1937.
Sources
Mostly Hasegawa Shigure’s mini-biography of her in Modern Beauties (they were friends and collaborators on the Urashima performance among others, and the biographical portrait is presented in part as an adorable conversation about Hamako between Shigure and one of Hamako’s koto teachers)
In temperament she was extremely serious and meticulous, but with a dry sense of humor, a pampered only daughter of a rich family (who at age sixteen was given 100 yen as allowance for a trip to Tokyo, an absurdly huge sum equivalent to something like two or three thousand dollars now; she bought a boxful of books and hired someone to carry it home for her). Her hobby was collecting Japanese swords. She had a weak stomach and dined for years on steak and exactly six grapes, prepared by her mother.
Among Hamako’s musical compositions were a part of the poet Kujo Takeko’s “dance poem” “Four Seasons” as well as a section of the literary figure Tsubouchi Shoyo’s play New Urashima, both of which were well received. She also composed music for the dancer Takahashi Motoko (Fujima Kansoga), a close friend sometimes referred to as a lover in Hamako’s diary. After losing her home in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, she lodged with Tsubouchi’s family and taught koto under the professional name Shugensha, acquiring numerous devoted students, mostly women. She died in 1937.
Sources
Mostly Hasegawa Shigure’s mini-biography of her in Modern Beauties (they were friends and collaborators on the Urashima performance among others, and the biographical portrait is presented in part as an adorable conversation about Hamako between Shigure and one of Hamako’s koto teachers)
