Editing Beate Sirota Gordon (section)

==Performing arts==
After returning to the United States with her parents,<ref name="Forward" /> in 1948,<ref name="NYT 20130101" /> Beate Sirota married Lieutenant Joseph Gordon, who had been chief of the interpreter–translator team for the military intelligence section at the [[Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers|Allied Supreme Commander GHQ]] and was also present for the negotiations on the constitution. Settling in New York in 1947, she took a number of jobs, including one at [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]]. Gordon eventually returned to her primary interest, the [[performing arts]]. She had studied [[ballet]], [[modern dance|modern]], [[folk dance|ethnic, and folk dance]], as well as piano and drama in Tokyo and at Mills. While raising her two young children, she joined the reactivated Japan Society in New York City in 1954 as Director of Student Programs, providing career and job counseling to Japanese students in New York. One of the students was [[Yoko Ono]], with whom she maintained a lifelong friendship. She also worked with visual artists, arranging exhibits and lecture-demonstrations, including the first American visit of the renowned woodblock artist, [[Shikō Munakata]]. In 1958 she was appointed the Society's Director of Performing Arts. In this capacity she introduced a number of Japanese performing artists to the New York public, helping to develop many careers. Among these artists were [[Toshi Ichiyanagi]], now one of Japan's foremost composers and [[Suzushi Hanayagi]], whom she introduced to the theater director [[Robert Wilson (director)|Robert Wilson]], with whom Hanayagi collaborated on the ''Knee Plays'', and other works. In addition, in 1960, Gordon became a consultant to the [[Asia Society]] performing arts program, expanding her activities from Japan to the other countries of Asia.

Gordon was also a consultant and adviser to producers such as [[Harold Prince]] for his production of the [[Stephen Sondheim]] musical, ''[[Pacific Overtures]]''. In the early 1960s, she was influential in bringing [[Koto (instrument)|koto]] music to the attention of Americans by introducing composer [[Henry Cowell]] to the great Japanese koto player, [[Kimio Eto]].  Cowell subsequently wrote a concerto for koto and orchestra for Eto which was presented by [[Leopold Stokowski]] and the [[Philadelphia Orchestra]] in New York, [[Philadelphia]], and on tour. Gordon also produced the first Asian performances at the [[Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts]].

Gordon's travels in search of authentic performing arts from Asia took her to such remote areas as [[Purulia]] in [[West Bengal]], [[India]], and [[Kuching]] in [[Sarawak]], [[Malaysia]], where she sought out indigenous performing artists to bring to universities, museums, and other cultural venues in New York and across the United States and Canada. Over the years, Gordon produced 39 tours by 34 companies from 16 countries. These performances, which were seen by an estimated 1.5 million Americans in some 400 cities and towns in 42 states, brought new ways of experiencing Asian performing arts to audiences throughout the country. They also intensified the post-World War II Asian influence on American art, design, music, literature, and theater.<ref name="Forward" />

For the media, Gordon produced and hosted a series of 12 half-hour programs on the Japanese arts broadcast on New York's [[WNET|Channel 13]] and served as commentator for a series of four hour-long programs featuring traditional and popular music from Japan, China, India, and [[Thailand]] which were broadcast on [[WPXN-TV|Channel 31]], New York City's municipal television station. She also produced 29 video tapes and five films televised nationally. For the [[Nonesuch Records]] Explorer Series, she produced eight albums of Asian music. Gordon served on the panel of, and was subsequently a consultant for, the Dance Program of the [[National Endowment for the Arts]]. She was also the Associate Editor in charge of the Asian Dance section of the ''International Encyclopedia of Dance'' published by [[Oxford University Press]] in February, 1998.