85. ROOT-AND-FLOWER
May 27, 2026
“Nimura’s attention to detail was not for its own sake, but only as it contributes to the Whole. The whole artistic vision…. He was always ‘tuned-in;’ he kept his mind open. And he insisted that his training wasn’t just for the body—it was for the body, the mind, and the spirit!”
Although Nimura didn’t relate his ideas to Emersonian Transcendentalism, they were, in fact, similar in some ways. He viewed the act of creation not as his own, but merely that of his discovering what God had already created. Emerson, as he noted in his essay on the Oversoul, thought that all great works of art already existed in perfection in some realm or Universal Mind beyond our world. All man needed to do was to open himself to these ideas, pushing his own cares and prejudices out of the way to free his mind to receive the inspiration from beyond. Nimura, in creating, spoke of reverting to a state of “Nothingness” or subconsciousness. He listened intently to music or to some inner idea, allowing its eventual expression to be as pure as possible. This, for him, was “Root-and-Flower.” Without the root of intuition, there would be no flower of dance creation.
(Source: “Sayonara, Yeichi Nimura!” by Glenn M. Loney, Professor of Theatre, City University, on commission for Dance Magazine.)
Related: MIRACLES, BREAK THROUGH, INTUITION, STUDIO 61, VOGUE, DEMONSTRATION, THE “TEMPLE”, THE YOGI