Wendy Kohatsu has been making odori since she was little. Influenced by her family, from her Japanese great-grandparents to her uncles, Okinawan music and dance have always been part of the everyday landscape of her life. He has grown with them like someone who grows with a family, a relationship that is cultivated and strengthened over time.

She belongs to the group of young Peruvian Nikkei who have found in art a powerful connection with their ancestors, a bridge to return to the past, but not to stay in it, but to project themselves into the future. It is not only about knowing and preserving, but also about disseminating, reaching other young people so that the legacy is reproduced.

Wendy visited Okinawa for the first time in 2010, taking advantage of a trip to Japan to see her mother. An aunt took her. He offered her a gift trip to the destination she wanted: Taiwan, South Korea, Okinawa... She chose the land of her ancestors. He was only there for four days, but they were enough for it to weigh on his soul to have to leave. She was captivated. It was then that he set the goal of returning. When, how, under what circumstances, I didn't know. But I would return, yes.

Her psychology studies at the university kept her away from the possibility of returning to Okinawa. He had his mind set on his career. Until one day, several years later, she met a friend who had been on a scholarship in Uchina and asked her a question that changed her life: “Don't you want to go to Okinawa?”

Her friend told her about her experience as an intern. Wendy listened enthusiastically and for the first time the dream of returning to Okinawa took shape. He had already finished his degree, so he would not have to interrupt his studies. With the wind in her favor, she got her act together and managed to be chosen to spend a year in Okinawa studying odori at the University of Art.

OKINAWA: MAGIC, COLOR AND WEALTH

It was hard, very hard, at first. Wendy discovered in Okinawa that the boys she was going to study with, despite being first years like her, were more advanced. Furthermore, his command of the Japanese language was insufficient. Thus, he had to level up not only in dance, but also in nihongo .

What was left to do? Practice, practice and practice. Among the many things that her one-year stay in Okinawa as an intern left her, the young psychologist highlights perseverance and patience.

If things didn't go well, there was no time to regret, but to continue trying. Mistakes were an impulse to “want to be better.” His motto was: “Keep persisting even if it doesn't work out.” There were days when I was in my training kimono from 10 in the morning until 10 at night. There was also not much time for leisure on weekends, when he often had to continue rehearsing or give presentations.

“Tears (of frustration) came out, but then they were tears of happiness. Achieving something I never expected was very rewarding,” says the yonsei. The good thing, she says, is that she never encountered bad faces among her classmates and teachers, there was always a willingness to help her. “The people there are super nice, super friendly,” he remembers. She and a Brazilian were the only foreigners.

Okinawa also modified its way of viewing odori . In Peru it was basically a hobby for her, but witnessing the excellence that dance achieves in the Japanese prefecture, the effort that its practitioners dedicate to it, she realized that it was not an activity to be practiced lightly, as if it were a hobby, but it had to be done as well as possible.

Beyond dance and music, her experience as a scholarship student brought her closer to her ancestors and left her lessons. “It also taught me that the culture of our ancestors is very rich. Very rich in values, very rich in history. It was a beautiful learning experience that left me a lot to think about, a lot to transmit.”

For Wendy, Okinawa is different from the rest of Japan. The people, for example. “Out of nowhere they start talking to you about the weather, what bus you are going to take, things like that. In Tokyo you don't see that. People seem to be in a hurry, they are always against time; Not in Okinawa, in Okinawa everyone has their time.”

“The fact that you feel like you're welcome… It's not that I'm saying that people on the main island don't feel that, but you kind of feel like a wall, which you can't get past. On the other hand, in Okinawa they are very hospitable, they are always aware of what you need, what you need, if you have any problems. "You can't feel more at home," he adds.

Hospitality, he explains, has nothing to do with being Nikkei. Open arms are for everyone.

The beautiful landscapes are a separate chapter. Wendy remembers with emotion what it meant to her to wake up every morning, open the window of her apartment and enjoy the spectacle of observing hills full of greenery, traditional houses and the monorail that moved accompanied by a catchy tune. “(Okinawa has) another aura, it's magical,” he says. It is “more colorful, more tropical.” It is the omnipresent sound of sanshin.

It wasn't all flowers, naturally. He did not like, for example, the hierarchical rigidity, the sharp division between senpai and kohai. She remembers that when they went out to bars after a presentation, the kohai had to serve the drink to the senpai and they were in charge of paying for it. It took him a while to get used to that. In Peru there is horizontality in treatment.

He also didn't like the suffix “san” added to his name. For her, it constituted a barrier, an excess of formality that she preferred to avoid. In the end, she managed to get them to simply call her by her name.

In Okinawa I felt the presence of war everywhere: on American military bases, on soldiers, military aircraft, memorial museums, etc. Wendy thinks that young Okinawans have normalized the situation because the foundations were already in place when they were born, while for the older people all this is painful because it takes them back to a tragic past.

On the other hand, he was surprised to discover how many people have ties to their country thanks to Japanese immigration. One day a classmate told her that her grandmother was born in Peru. On another occasion, a friend's father told her that they had family in Peru, something that not even her friend knew. Thus there were several cases.

Not everyone, however, was familiar with Peru. In reality, they had no idea it existed. Wendy had a surreal dialogue with a fellow student that went this way when she told him she was Peruvian:

—Ah, Peru, is it next to Italy?

She looked at him amazed.

"No, Peru is in South America," he answered.

—In what part of South America?

—Next to Brazil… that is Peru.

-That? Is there a country next to Brazil?

"Yes, there is a country, the country where Machu Picchu is, I don't know if you've heard..." she answered a little angrily.

—And what language do they speak, Peruvian?

-We do not speak Spanish.

-Spanish? Like in Spain?

"Yes," she said resignedly.

TEACHING IN PERU

Wendy's year as an intern was too small for her. He would love to return to Okinawa to continue learning and reach the level of the artists he met there. Having completed his scholarship in Japan, he now has the mission of disseminating in Peru what he learned there. “After trying what Okinawa is like, I wanted people to know more,” he says.

Wendy is teaching odori to children ages 6 to 15, divided into two groups, in the Okinawan Association of Peru.

Teaching odori is much more than teaching how to move your body to the rhythm of a song. When words are not enough, when they do not measure up to what you want to convey, body language begins. Dance can be a means of connection superior to verbal language. “It connects me with people and with my past. That connection you make with people, knowing that what you are doing gives meaning to the other person, gives them joy… There are no words,” he says. Is magic.

© 2018 Enrique Higa