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Eth-Noh-Tec Celebrates 20 Years of Dance, Theater and Storytelling

Nancy Wang (right) and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo fuse traditional and modern forms in Eth-Noh-Tec performances. Photo by Ji Hyun Lim.

By Ji Hyun Lim | AsianWeek Staff Writer

All modern art has roots. In the case of Eth-Noh-Tec’s 20-year endeavor, old folk tales and storytelling have sprouted new stylized versions of dance, theater and storytelling.

On Dec. 8, Eth-Noh-Tec celebrated two decades of change and preservation. Founders and artistic co-directors, Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang, glided and sashayed, beat on traditional folk instruments and exhibited a finesse that captured the attention of some 50 guests, at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco.

Guests were also entertained by song and dance, and storytelling by Diane Ferlatte and Gay Ducey, while feasting on a buffet catered by local San Francisco eateries. The evening closed with a booming performance by the San Jose Taiko Drummers.

Music, theater, dance and spoken word were fused together to convey a sense of both the old and new as Kikuchi-Yngojo and Wang moved and spoke in tandem with each other. Their bright red and purple Japanese costumes conveyed energy, while words and chanting emphasized their adeptness in combining the arts in an enchanting and almost surrealistic way.

Kikuchi-Yngojo and Wang spent years creating such a harmonious production. Wang, a fifth generation Chinese American, was a self-professed lover of dance and music but never considered performing for a living until after graduate school at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her first appearance was in a Philip Gotanda play entitled Avocado Kid — a musical spin-off of Momotaro, a Japanese play about the birth of a folk hero from a giant peach.

Wang met the half-Filipino and half-Japanese musical director Kikuchi-Yngojo at that show and they were soon inseparable partners in the theater world. Kikuchi-Yngojo and Wang married the year after they met and began to pursue their artistic dreams full-force.

Wang focused on choreography while her husband began re-inventing different stylized forms of performing arts. His studies included delving deep in the history, culture and traditions of indigenous music from the Southern Philippines. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kikuchi-Yngojo was also influenced by the Asian American identity movement in the United States, when artists of all forms sought refuge in creating their identity through their work.

“There were a lot of artists expressing identity, history and culture through the arts,” Kikuchi-Yngojo explains. “What was difficult was that there weren’t many mentors. It required knowing about traditions and that started me on the journey.”

The couple breathed life into tradition with the mix of contemporary ideas. Wang’s background in modern dance fused with Kikuchi-Yngojo’s experience with traditional theater and became the the performance group now known as Eth-Noh-Tec. They considered their work “a fusion of both ancient and innovative — sometimes wacky, off-the-wall and avant-garde.”

Like all serious artists, Kikuchi-Yngojo and Wang stepped up to the challenges posed by running an independent performance group. Jean Ishibashi, an educator and activist, coordinated a conference for the American Friends Service Committee, and asked Eth-Noh-Tec to perform storytelling. The couple found the story of the Ten Thousand Treasure Cave from the Yao Ethnic Minority group from China and performed the piece, utilizing all their skills in performing arts and spoken word. The positive reception of their act encouraged the couple to integrate storytelling into their performances.

Their work is characterized by styled performances stripped of extraneous movement and emphasizing clean performance lines. Kikuchi-Yngojo and Wang found that the blend of traditional folk tales with modernity became the perfect combination to convey their artistic mission and to tell didactic and meaningful stories.

“It matched our personal philosophy in terms of environmental support, peace, diversity and servicing your community,” Wang explains. “These are all in the motifs of the folktale mythology and some in contemporary stories and are at the core of human values like truth, honesty, integrity and courage.”

Kikuchi-Yngojo says their work communicates well with youth. He calls it “value education” — a means to express concerns about life today in a way entertaining and engaging to both younger and older audiences.

What makes Eth-Noh-Tec unique is the physicality of the storytelling and its refusal to sacrifice the artistic integrity or personal values of the artists. Both Wang and Kikuchi-Yngojo work collaboratively with grassroots organizations such as Global Exchange to spread stories of peace, justice, fair trade and social equality.

“[Global Exchange’s] politics are in alignment with ours,” Wang points out. “After 9-11, we felt the need to tackle more contemporary stories and wanted to add more Middle Eastern stories, Western Asia and Afghanistan [stories] and break stereotypes with people.”

Reach Ji Hyun Lim at jlim@asianweek.com.