Sato, Shozo (1933-) | University of Illinois Archives

Shozo Sato (1933-) was born in Kobe, Japan on May 18, 1933. The son of Takami Sato, he and his brother Tomoyaso were raised by his father's sisters, Hatsuko and Shizuno Sato, after his father accepted a military position managing a hospital in China during WWII. Sato's life in Japan during WWII had a profound impact on his artistic goals. After the war, he pursued a degree in Fine Arts from the Bunka Gakuen College in Tokyo, trained in Tea Ceremonies under Kishimoto Kosen, studied music at the Tokyo Seisen School, and enrolled at the Toho Academy of Performing Arts in Tokyo, where he studied with the master Kabuki artist, Nakamura Kanzaburo XVII.

Sato came to the University of Illinois as a visiting artist in 1964. He became an artist in resident for the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in 1969, offering courses and workshops in traditional Japanese arts including calligraphy, Sumi-e, Ikebana, Kabuki, and Tea Ceremony.  He is best recognized for his adaptations of traditional western theatre, Macbeth, Medea, Othello, Faust, Achilles, Madame Butterfly and, The Mikado, in the style of Kabuki productions beginning in 1978.

In 1979 he was promoted to the rank of Assistant Professor of Art and eventually became a full professor.  His work as a Kabuki dancer at the University of Illinois was officially recognized by the Nakamura family in 1985, when he was adopted into the Kabuki family and given the name Nakamura Kanzo IV.

Sato founded the Japan House at the University of Illinois in 1979. A center for traditional Japanese arts, the Japan House features tea rooms, a tea garden, and a rock garden. The gardens were expanded throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Nick Offerman--an American actor and student of Shozo Sato while attending the the University of Illinois, assisted in the design and construction of a pergola near the Japan House in 2017.

After retiring from the University in 1992, Sato continued to develop workshops on traditional Japanese arts in the United States and abroad from a second Japan House established in Northern California. His Kabuki play Iago's Plot, which was developed during a residency at Towson State University from 1994-1995, was performed in Baltimore, Cairo, and Weimar.

Sato is the author of The Art of Arranging Flowers: A Complete Guide (1968) and The Art of Sumi-E: Appreciation, Techniques, and Application (1984). Sato is a past recipient of the Joseph Jefferson Award in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, the Hollywood Drama Guild Award, South Africa's Vita Award, and the Baltimore Sun Award for directing and design. In 1992, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs honored him with the Certificate of Commendation for promoting Japanese culture globally and in 2004 he was awarded The Order of the Sacred Treasure with Rosette by the Emperor of Japan.

Scott Schwartz Interview with Shozo Sato 2024

https://japanhouse.illinois.edu/.