A Groundbreaking Breakdance Trail | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

TOKYO >> A 74-year-old surfer and master of classical Japanese dance may seem an unlikely member of a senior breakdancing group, but Saruwaka Kiyoshie said it was a logical choice to take her first steps in the sport after it was confirmed for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

As a troubled teenager, Saruwaka fell in love with surfing and wondered why it wasn’t an Olympic sport, until it finally got a spot in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“And now there’s surfing in Paris, and Japan even has a contender for the gold medal,” said Saruwaka, who once finished second in a local surfing competition and still surfs waves for fun, from her home in Tokyo.

“I used to see kids breakdancing under the railroad tracks and think to myself, ‘If I was young, I’d probably be one of them,’” she said, confessing that her parents started her in Nihonbuyo, a traditional Japanese dance, at age 5 to keep their feisty daughter out of trouble. “Of course, I never thought I’d actually do it at this age, but when the opportunity came up, I thought, ‘Why not? It sounds fun!’”

Saruwaka is now a member of Ara Style Senior, the only breakdance club in Japan made up of senior citizens.

On a recent Friday, eight members gathered in a community center, dressed in matching orange and green T-shirts, to rehearse for a performance at a local festival two days away.

The team is the brainchild of Reiko Maruyama, 71, an elected official in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, who wanted to revitalize the community through sports and exercise.

Maruyama had spoken to Yusuke Arai, the son of a friend and a former national breakdancing champion, and suggested the idea of ​​introducing older residents to breakdancing.

“I said to him, now that it’s becoming an Olympic discipline, this is the breakthrough moment!” she said.

Arai, who has competed as a judge in breaking competitions – he once awarded Japanese favorite B-Boy Shigekix a prize as a child – agreed and began with Maruyama as his only senior pupil in early 2023.

To motivate him, Arai suggested last spring that Maruyama and the children he teaches perform at a community center.

Not wanting to be the only adult in a sea of ​​schoolchildren, Maruyama convinced Saruwaka to join her, counting on her greater desire for new challenges.

“I want to spread the breaking among seniors in Edogawa ward, and from Edogawa to the rest of Japan and perhaps even the world,” the councilwoman said. Japan is the fastest-aging advanced society, with about 30 percent of the population aged 65 or older.

As Soopasoul’s funk anthem “It’s Just Begun, Pt. 2” played, the women took their positions and rehearsed their routine, peppered with the simplest freezes, top rock and floor moves – and there was plenty of laughter.

“You can’t help but laugh when you see yourself in these funny poses,” said Maruyama, who had to do a chair freeze pose at the end of the routine, balancing herself on her head, hands and one foot, with one leg high above her body. “I think it’s great that you can laugh, dance and stay healthy, so I recommend it to people around me.”

B-girls, B-boys and B-ladies

Ara Style Senior now consists of about 15 members. Eight of them performed in June for a full house of Edogawa residents during the festival. They were accompanied by Arai and his younger students.

The moves they attempt are a far cry from the impossible acrobatic feats that B-boys and B-girls will perform at the Olympics. The point for the B-ladies of Ara Style, however, is to have fun and stay fit.

“At first I thought, ‘I can’t breakdance at my age,’” said Hitomi Oda, 69. “And of course we can’t do anything extreme, but it’s just fun to do the easy moves and work the body.”

For Saruwaka, breaking away from classical dance is a welcome respite from the heavy responsibility she carries in passing on the art of the elite, 400-year-old Saruwaka school of classical dance, where she earned her professional stage name, or “natori.”

Once she puts on her traditional “yukata” (summer kimono) to teach, after rehearsing with the B-ladies, Saruwaka’s expression is relaxed yet serious as she guides her students through the subtle gestures characteristic of the Nihonbuyo craft.

“I suspect I will continue breakdancing my whole life,” she said, noting that it strengthened her lower body so she could continue with classical dance.

“I bet I can keep going until I’m 100, if I’m still alive,” she said.