Michio It

Michio Ito was a Japanese dancer who developed his own choreography style in Europe and America. He was an associate of William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Angna Enters, Isamu Noguchi, Louis Horst, Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Lillian Powell, Vladimir Rosing, Pauline Koner, Lester Horton and others. His works in New York included "Bushido" and "Cherry Blossoms" He moved to California in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression. In 1931, he opened Michio ito Studios, his dance school at Hollywood Boulevard and Wilton Place. His wife, Hazel Wright, was on the faculty there. He performed several symphonic dance poems at the Hollywood Bowl, including ones to "Prince Igor" and 'Scheherazade' He was arrested in 1941 and held at four different internment facilities; first in Montana (Fort Sill) and then in New Mexico (Santa Fe) and New York. He died in 1961 at the age of 69, and was buried in the San Diego National Cemetery.