Rika Lin's 'ingenuity of necessity' bridges centuries of tradition

Dance | Chicago Reader: Black hair. A jilted woman. A sacrifice. Snow. "She's a geisha who falls in love with a samurai. They have their one secret night together, but she realizes the future of the clan depends on his marrying this other woman, so she says, 'Go.' It's their wedding night. She's alone and undoing her hair. It's black hair—a symbol of youth, the strength of a woman, resilience, beauty," says choreographer Rika Lin on Kurokami ("Black Hair"), an excerpt from the now-lost 18th-century kabuki play Oakinai hirugakojima.