Lissa Yamaguchi
Amazon spirit

Although only 150cm tall, Lissa Yamaguchi embodies the spirit of the Amazons. Not only has her super-woman energy driven her to documentary-making within the Amazon rainforest of her native country, but it has also launched her freelance reporting for Osaka's Portuguese News Channel 333 and most recently inspired her to open the Ladybug International Kinder-garten in Nakamozu.

“I am a Brazilian, so I think like one, yet I know Japanese thinking too,” said Yamaguchi, who identifies strongly with her Brazilian upbringing though she is ethnically Japanese. “I know how to show that the world is bigger — how good it is to be international … Nationalism is taught in Japanese schools, yet my students will be citizens of the world,” she said.

Her program offers English language immersion with courses in Japanese and Portuguese, as well as a comprehensive arts and socializing plan to develop the identity of young children. “This is so important, because without becoming an individual there is no opportunity to be a true citizen,” Yamaguchi said. Daily art projects, monthly theatre productions, and frequent field trips define her technique for fostering young individuals.

Yamaguchi's staff also provide weekly ballet and capoeira (Brazilian martial arts dance) lessons. Having performed in many classical ballets during her own professional dancing career as a teenager, Yamaguchi values artists as “the best teachers of anything —they have an open heart. They have creativity,” she said.

Perhaps most formative to her Ladybug philosophy, are the six months she spent in the Amazon rainforest in a government research post in 1995. After earning a BA in advertising and a Master's in cinema by the age of 20, she agreed to tour remote regions of the forest, filming indigenous tribes in their daily life.

Yamaguchi prepared one backpack of equipment, and accompanied by a multilingual indigenous guide, contacted over 20 tribes, staying with four of them. Her observations translate to simple yet essential truths such as; “Healthy kids make healthy adults”.

“Children [of the Amazon] play all day at nice games, for example, archery, swimming, and tree climbing … They [the parents] are mostly so kind, so pure.”

Because Yamaguchi wanted to film unobtrusively, she assimilated as best she could. Shedding her clothes and subsisting on a diet of ants, fish, bananas, and monkey, she enjoyed a world where there is “no clock yet time for everything” and “no need for money … I work to confirm their philosophy is right,” Yamaguchi said, who is still reflecting on this life-altering experience.

After presenting her documentary to the Brazilian government, she continued filming for private compa-nies and businesses in Sao Paolo, amassing a portfo-lio of “at least 10 pages in length,” Yamaguchi said. “Sebastião Salgado, the Brazilian president of French Magnum films and founder of the press agency Amazonas Images, invited me to make a documentary in the Congo, but I could not … I was still thinking about the Amazon.”

In 1997, she flew for the first time to Japan to visit her mother who had settled in Gunma. While juggling numerous jobs — translation, bento making and hostessing, Yamaguchi studied Japanese. By 2001, she met and married her Japanese husband and current business partner. Together, they have two children, who are enrolled in the Ladybug Kindergarten.

Though distanced from the time and place of her life-changing documentary, Yamaguchi quickly picked up another camera. Four years ago, she submitted free-lance news reports to News Channel 333, which aired and resulted in commissions that she conti-nues to fulfill today. Her favorite interviews were those with butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, founder of Ohno's Dance Institute, and with Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio who received her on a visit to Kyoto in March.

Like the warm welcome that she received from Sampaio, she extends the same to those who visit Ladybug Kindergarten. Visitors are ushered into a brightly lit and spacious learning haven, which Yamaguchi envisions as more than just a school, but a “culture center or institute,” she said. “I want to pick up the best of dances in the world, the best art.”

Whatever the nationality of the soil in which she plants her projects, Yamaguchi's Amazon spirit sees that they flourish. Ladybug Kindergarten is the latest to thrive under her caring, wise, and green touch.

Ladybug School
Sakai City, Nakamouzu 2-13-1
Email: ladybug-ik@hotmail.co.jp
Tel: 072-240-0609

Text & photos: Una Funk