Our USA branch of the Kiyonomoto School was founded in 1994. Celebrating over 21 years, under the leadership of our head instructor Kiyonomoto Katsunami and Kiyonomoto Katsuno, the group has been performing at various venues to spread and promote our unique style of traditional dancing.

The USA branch of the Kiyonomoto School offers traditional Japanese dance classes in the Bay Area for anyone interested in learning beautiful and rich part of Japanese culture. 

As a group we regularly perform throughout the bay area at cultural festivals and private events, where you can come and enjoy our performances.

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Traditional Japanese dancing has its roots in Shintoism. Even today the repertoires of dance schools contain spiritual dances or go-shugimono, that stem from religious ceremonies. 

However, the birth of what is known as Nihonbuyou, traditional Japanese dancing, today started in the seventeenth century with a priestess of the Izumo Shrine, lzumo no Okuni. Okuni performed buddhist dances, donning fashionable clothes and using swords and other props, dancing a style people had not seen before. Thus the kabuki style of dancing was born and eventually evolved into the kabuki theatre that persists to this day. 

Although women were banned from stage performances in the seventeenth century and in effect remain excluded from the kabuki stage, women continued practicing dance in private, leading to the establishment of dance schools each with different styles and often close links to the kabuki world. To this day traditional Japanese dances are performed in the kabuki theatre, public and private  gatherings, such as Japanese festivals, religious ceremonies and by Geishas at small tea parties.