Cakewalks in Kimono: Kawakami Sadayakko, Itō Michio, and the Oscillations of Cross-Racial Performance

Abstract: In 1900, actress Kawakami Sadayakko performed what was billed as a "Japanese Cakewalk," and in 1917, choreographer Itō Michio danced to Claude Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk." In these two "Japanese cakewalks," the complicated and violent history of the cakewalk as a dance of mimicry and coerced entertainment (but also as a tool of modern self-making for Black performers) converged with ongoing imaginaries about Japanese artistry, craft labor, and the global circulation of culture and consumer goods. The essay argues that these performances brought to the fore concerns about aestheticized labor, racial imitation, and corporeal virtuosity as consequences of transpacific exchange.