{"id":5066,"date":"2025-07-06T20:23:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T20:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/?p=5066"},"modified":"2025-07-06T20:59:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T20:59:38","slug":"remembering-shozo-satos-early-life-of-peace-from-lost-innocence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/2025\/07\/06\/remembering-shozo-satos-early-life-of-peace-from-lost-innocence\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Shozo Sato\u2019s Early Life of Peace from Lost Innocence"},"content":{"rendered":"

The people who worked and studied with Sensei Shozo Sato from 1964 until his passing this past May, will always remember him fondly as their gentle and patient sensei <\/em>(teacher) of Japanese culture and art.\u00a0 His personal stories, always told with a touch of self-effacing humor during workshops and thoughtful conversations with University of Illinois students, were hallmarks of his instruction and cultural exchanges through the arts.\u00a0 Shozo believed if we communicate with one another through the arts, we will always grow to better understand one another.<\/p>\n

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Shozo Sato as Kabuki dance artist, unidentified location, ca. 1955-1959.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Much has been written about Sato\u2019s tremendous accomplishments and arts diplomacy across the country.\u00a0 However, only his most intimate colleagues, friends, and family understood that his love of teaching and the traditional arts of Japan were formed from the crucible of war, family tragedy, and an embrace of all things beautiful in people.<\/p>\n

Shozo Sato (1933-2025) was born in Kobe, Japan on May 18, 1933, and raised in Osaka. \u00a0The son of Takami (father) and Midori (mother) Sato, he and his younger brother Tomoyaso were raised by his father’s sisters, Hatsuko and Shizuno Sato, after his father accepted a military position managing the administration of a hospital in China beginning in 1937. \u00a0Shozo also had one cousin and one half-sister, Yoshiko and Shitsuko Sato.<\/p>\n

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Hand-colored photograph of Shozo, Hatsuko, Tomoyaso, and Shizuno Sato at Itsukushima, Miyajima\u2014Shrine Island, Japan, 1939. Hand-coloring done by Shozo Sato.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Little is known about Shozo\u2019s biological mother, Midori, other than that she had a great interest in the performing arts and was the first to introduce him to Kabuki theatre.\u00a0 Shozo\u2019s father had little interest in the performing arts and hoped that his son would follow his own career in administration.\u00a0 When Shozo\u2019s elementary school teachers asked him what he wanted to be as an adult, he told them he wanted to be an artist.\u00a0 This brought about much consternation from his grandmother, Tome Sato, according to Shozo.<\/p>\n

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Shozo Sato\u2019s grandmother, Tome Sato, and father, Takami Sato, photographed in Ise, Japan, ca. 1920s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life in war-torn Japan between 1937 and 1945 was filled with food shortages, nationalist propaganda, devasting destruction, and death.\u00a0\u00a0 However, the war and its aftermath did not darken Shozo\u2019s wonder for all beautiful things.\u00a0 The visual and performing arts provided him a spiritual escape from the emotional conflicts he experienced as a child.<\/p>\n

After Japan\u2019s invasion of China in July 1937, the Japanese government instituted specific times for reverential silences to maintain popular support for Japan\u2019s new war efforts.\u00a0 After Japan attacked the United States on December 7, 1941, all Japanese subjects were regularly monitored by their government.\u00a0 Life in Japan between 1943 and 1944 was filled with increasing economic hardship and governmental control.<\/p>\n

American bombings of Japan\u2019s industrial cities displaced millions.\u00a0 Food rationing, which began in 1940, became a national crisis by 1944.\u00a0\u00a0 Little is recorded in Shozo\u2019s papers about the Sato family\u2019s life at this time, but his comments about the March 13-14, 1945, bombing of Osaka clearly indicate that he was living in Osaka and witnessed firsthand its fiery destruction.\u00a0 Shozo described his experience as a child many years later:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI remember the searchlights sweeping across the sky\u2026.The first bombs were incendiaries, and they created a massive firestorm blaze across Osaka\u2026We were all out on the street, helping people escape from the fire\u2026Later, after the first atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, my uncle, Yoshiaki Sato, and I traveled by freight train to see if any family had survived\u2026We went to the home of my uncle\u2019s father, and we discovered the bomb\u2019s incredible heat had peeled the skin off of the granite stone on the gate\u2026We never found any of his family\u2026I cannot get away from these images.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Japan\u2019s surrender and the conclusion of WWII initiated its slow economic recovery between 1945 and 1947, which placed additional burdens on the people of Japan during the early years of reconstruction.\u00a0 However, the most significant casualty of the war years for Shozo was the divorce of his parents.<\/p>\n

As Japan\u2019s economy improved between 1949 and 1950, new social freedoms and greater collegiality were welcomed by its inhabitants and the US military who occupied the country after the war.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1950, at the age of 17, Shozo began pursuing a fine arts degree from the Bunka Gakuen College in Tokyo, which focused on western European genres.<\/p>\n

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Hand-colored photograph of Shozo Sato, age 17, at Osaka, Japan, 1949.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, after several years he refocused his studies on traditional Japanese arts practices.\u00a0 These included Japanese tea ceremonies under Kishimoto Kosen as well as ikebana <\/em>(flower arrangement), sumi-e<\/em> (black-ink painting), and shodo <\/em>(calligraphy).\u00a0 In addition, Shozo enrolled at the Toho Academy of Performing Arts in Tokyo in 1955 to study with the master Kabuki artist, Nakamura Kanzaburo XVII.<\/p>\n

During this time, Shozo experienced new friendships with like-minded artists in Japan which allowed him to blossom both artistically and spiritually.\u00a0 Some of his fondest memories were associated with his family\u2019s dog, \u201cPuppy,\u201d who had become a center to new-found life.\u00a0 At this same time Shozo began teaching art to children of American GIs and Japanese women.\u00a0 Through this early work as an art teacher, the superintendents of the American Navy, Army, and Air Force schools hired Shozo to teach traditional Japanese arts to the families of the military commanders stationed in Japan.<\/p>\n

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Puppy asleep in water bowl (left) and Shozo Sato at unidentified beach (right), ca. 1955-1959.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Japanese school curriculums pushed away from these cultural traditions, the American schools sought Shozo to teach Americans and their children about Japanese traditions as a form of diplomacy between the two countries.\u00a0 Through this work Shozo developed many new friendships with the military\u2019s commanders who helped spread the word about his traditional arts workshops.<\/p>\n

As Shozo continued studying art and kabuki in Tokyo he formed a small art school in Kamakura, Japan between 1958-1959.\u00a0 His small arts school taught traditional Japanese arts practices to all interested students, most of whom were American.\u00a0\u00a0 During this time Japanese families typically shunned his arts instruction, but American visitors were deeply committed to it.<\/p>\n

In 1962 Margaret Erlanger, a dance instructor from the University of Illinois whose sabbatical took her to Japan, heard about Shozo\u2019s unique art school and spent two weeks studying traditional dance with him.\u00a0 At the conclusion of her sabbatical visit, she invited him to the United States and the University of Illinois to serve as a visiting artist in residence to teach Japanese theatre and dance.<\/p>\n

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Shozo Sato performing Kabuki, 1966.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two years later he came to the University of Illinois as a visiting artist and by 1969 he became an artist in residence for the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, offering courses and workshops in traditional Japanese arts including shodo, sumi-e, ikebana<\/em>, Kabuki, and the Japanese tea ceremony.\u00a0 He is best recognized for his adaptations of traditional western theatre, Macbeth<\/em>, Medea<\/em>, Othello<\/em>, Faust<\/em>, Achilles<\/em>, Madame Butterfly<\/em> and The Mikado, <\/em>in the style of Kabuki productions, beginning in 1978.<\/p>\n

His career on the university faculty brought about the creation of Japan House on campus, and he continued to blossom through his arts diplomacy until his retirement in 1992 when the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs honored him with the Certificate of Commendation for promoting Japanese culture globally.\u00a0 In 2004 he was awarded The Order of the Sacred Treasure with Rosette by the Emperor of Japan.<\/p>\n

For further information about the Shozo Sato Papers<\/a> contact Scott Schwartz at schwrtzs@illinois.edu<\/a> or 217-333-4577.\u00a0\u00a0 Many thanks to Marc-Anthony Macon, Jennifer Gunji-Ballsrud, and Sumie Burton for their help with this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The people who worked and studied with Sensei Shozo Sato from 1964 until his passing this past May, will always remember him fondly as their gentle and patient sensei (teacher) of Japanese culture and art.\u00a0 His personal stories, always told with a touch of self-effacing humor during workshops and thoughtful conversations with University of Illinois […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5066"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5084,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5066\/revisions\/5084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}