Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe

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Frederik L. Schodt. Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Setting the Stage

The Risley Act

Going for Gold

Into Asia

Yokohama, Japan

Taking America

At the Exposition

The Long Way to London

The Matter of the Contract

Final Acts

AFTERWORD

Notes

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Index

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How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan—and Japan to the West

Frederik L. Schodt

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Opening at the Academy of Music

On the seventh, the Imperials finally opened at Maguire’s Academy of Music for what was billed as a limited, three-day run. It was a huge success and made the performances of the previous troupe, the Tetsuwari family, look tame. But the Imperials were aided by a spike in interest in Japan that occurred in the city; that same week the first regular steamship line between San Francisco and Japan had been inaugurated with much fanfare in the media. And the Imperials also had the professional production and choreography of Professor Risley. Indeed, they had more of everything. As the Alta noted right before they opened, “They are said to excel the first troupe in the variety of their feats—besides having more ladders, more tubs, more bamboo poles, more juvenile prodigies, and more female rope-walkers.” The females alone might have been enough to draw a crowd, but it was a jammed and suffocating house, so much so that, as Hirohachi marveled in his diary, the doors had to be shut to prevent any more people from entering.27

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