‘A Way of Life’: The Japanese Dancer Conquering Spain’s Flamenco Scene

Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
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‘A Way of Life’: The Japanese Dancer Conquering Spain’s Flamenco Scene

Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Japan's Junko Hagiwara, also known as La Yunko, poses for pictures at the Instituto Andaluz de Flamenco in Seville, on August 29, 2024. (AFP)

Japan's Junko Hagiwara has caused a stir in Spain's traditional flamenco world by unexpectedly winning the prize for best dancer at the country's leading flamenco festival -- the first foreigner to do so.

The announcement that the 48-year-old -- who performs under the stage name "La Yunko" -- was awarded the honor at the closing ceremony of August's "Cante de las Minas" festival in the southeastern town of La Union was met with a mixture of applause and some jeering.

"I was very surprised, I could not believe it. I believed it but I did not believe it," she told AFP by phone from the southern city of Seville, where she has lived for over two decades when asked about her reaction to getting the award.

Hagiwara, who was born in Kawasaki near Tokyo, said she did not notice the jeers because she "went blank" when her name was announced as the winner.

"When I dance, I don't think I am a foreigner, that I am Japanese. I don't think that. It doesn't occur to me. I am simply on stage, I listen to the guitar, the singing and what I feel I express in my dancing," she added.

Created in 1961, the "Cante de las Minas" festival is considered to be the world's most important annual flamenco festival. It features prizes for best singing, guitar playing and musical instrument performance in addition to dance.

Critics were unanimous in their support for Hagiwara.

"I liked her more than her competitors for three reasons: her classicism, the fact that she did not dance for the gallery, that is, for the public, and, finally, her good training," flamenco critic Manuel Bohorquez wrote in online newspaper Sevilla Info.

- 'Way of life -

Hagiwara said she became fascinated by flamenco -- a centuries-old art form that combines rhythmic hand clapping, stamping feet and impassioned singing -- at age 14 when she watched a gymnastics championship in which a Spanish competitor used the genre's guitar music.

"I loved the flamenco guitar, the sound and the melody, the rhythm," she said.

There was no internet at the time to help her explore her new interest, so she went to a shop that rented records and borrowed the only available flamenco CD.

"I listened to it, but there was no guitar, it was just singing," she recalled.

"Flamenco performers often have a very hoarse voice, very deep, and it scared me," she added while laughing.

Hagiwara went on to study pedagogy at Waseda University in Tokyo, where she joined a flamenco club, and started to take flamenco lessons.

But she felt she needed more.

In 2002 she decided to take the dramatic move across the world to Seville, capital of the southern region of Andalusia and the cradle of flamenco, to pursue her passion.

She made the move despite objections from her parents.

"In Japan, you can learn technique, choreography, but, of course, flamenco is culture, it's a way of life," she said.

"My father got very, very angry. He did not speak to me for three months. And my mother said 'how shameful, how shameful'," Hagiwara said.

- Culture shocks -

In Spain, she dedicated herself to flamenco, learning to dance with the best teachers, became fluent in Spanish and married an Andalusian man from the coastal town of Tarifa.

She gradually made a name for herself as a performer in Seville, and has also taught flamenco.

As is the case with many foreigners, she was surprised at first by the lively way locals talked to each other.

"I thought everyone was fighting!" Hagiwara said.

There were other differences.

"In Japanese culture, we place a lot of value on hiding the feeling, and in flamenco, you have to show it. In Japan it is for the inside, and in flamenco it is for the outside," she said.



These Canadian Rocks May Be the Oldest on Earth

A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
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These Canadian Rocks May Be the Oldest on Earth

A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)

Scientists have identified what could be the oldest rocks on Earth from a rock formation in Canada.

The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has long been known for its ancient rocks — plains of streaked gray stone on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec. But researchers disagree on exactly how old they are.

Work from two decades ago suggested the rocks could be 4.3 billion years old, placing them in the earliest period of Earth's history. But other scientists using a different dating method contested the finding, arguing that long-ago contaminants were skewing the rocks' age and that they were actually slightly younger at 3.8 billion years old.

In the new study, researchers sampled a different section of rock from the belt and estimated its age using the previous two dating techniques — measuring how one radioactive element decays into another over time. The result: The rocks were about 4.16 billion years old.

The different methods "gave exactly the same age,” said study author Jonathan O'Neil with the University of Ottawa.

The new research was published Thursday in the journal Science.

Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a collapsing cloud of dust and gas soon after the solar system existed. Primordial rocks often get melted and recycled by Earth's moving tectonic plates, making them extremely rare on the surface today. Scientists have uncovered 4 billion-year-old rocks from another formation in Canada called the Acasta Gneiss Complex, but the Nuvvuagittuq rocks could be even older.

Studying rocks from Earth's earliest history could give a glimpse into how the planet may have looked — how its roiling magma oceans gave way to tectonic plates — and even how life got started.

“To have a sample of what was going on on Earth way back then is really valuable,” said Mark Reagan with the University of Iowa, who studies volcanic rocks and lava and was not involved with the new study.

The rock formation is on tribal Inukjuak lands and the local Inuit community has temporarily restricted scientists from taking samples from the site due to damage from previous visits.

After some geologists visited the site, large chunks of rock were missing and the community noticed pieces for sale online, said Tommy Palliser, who manages the land with the Pituvik Landholding Corp. The Inuit community wants to work with scientists to set up a provincial park that would protect the land while allowing researchers to study it.

“There's a lot of interest for these rocks, which we understand,” said Palliser, a member of the community. “We just don't want any more damage.”