Toku’s Dance, performance excerpt performed at Kellas Gallery, Lawrence, Kansas, November 10, 1984, Joel Sanderson; Roger Shimomura

Toku’s Dance was Shimomura’s first staged performance piece. Based on translated diary entries of Toku Shimomura, the artist’s grandmother, the seven-minute performance consisted of a dance choreographed and performed by Marsha Paludan, a kurogo (black-clad stagehand in traditional Japanese theater), a sliding wall screen called a shōji, and an audio composition that merged “Servo-Go-Go” (1984) by American musician Tyrone Brunson (1956–2013) with traditional Kabuki theater music.