Stacy Junko Hayashi

I wish I would have known her better. I watched her from a distance. I admired her profoundly. At times I even envied her. She was a few months older than me but I often felt our age gap was bigger because she carried herself so fearlessly. We came from different parts of the world. She was a Japanese girl from LA and I was a Finnish girl who had moved to New York from Helsinki. Our paths crossed in September 2017 at 520 8th Avenue through our mutual love and adoration of improvisational theatre (where everything is made up on the spot) .

She wasn’t, unlike most of us, afraid of sharing herself with the world. She was not afraid of her vulnerability, sense of self-worth, and capacity for love. She made people around her feel validated and seen. Her undeniable charisma, presence, and completely badass ownership of herself was something that either drew people in or scared them away. She owned her womanhood and celebrated her intelligence and strength unapologetically. She was a phenomenal improviser and performer. She was the embodiment of presence.

Our improv course was focusing on experimental theatre and performance art. She came in late on the first day, but she jumped right into the group warm up. I remember noticing her loud, joyous laughter, and playful energy. My first impression of her was that she was a cute, mildly annoying, California chic. She stirred strong emotions in me right away - curiosity and annoyance. I quickly noticed she was the kind of a person that you could not ignore or brush away lightly. She was a person who had the ability to impact others with her presence just by stepping into a room.

We did an exercise called the park bench of truth. We were to sit across one another in front of the class silently for one minute until our teacher would give us a sign that the minute was up and that we could speak to one another if we wanted to. I remember looking into her curious and kind brown eyes. You see - I have a constant need to protect other people around me to the point of underestimating them, and I’ve become used to hearing that I can be too intense and even intimidating. So, I immediately felt the need to make her feel comfortable sitting across from me. This adorable girl with long, gorgeous black hair and colorful clothes. I smiled, I smized, and I rearranged my face in order to subtly gesture to her that she could relax and that I wasn’t someone to be afraid of. It’s nice to be wrong about people. This woman who was sitting across from me, it turns out, did not need me to protect her or to lighten the intensity of the moment, my gaze, or my presence in any way. She was silently inviting me to join her deeper in the moment and to maintain the eye contact. She was not afraid of anything in that moment and she was open to everything. She had no need to entertain, she had the confidence to just sit there and to observe and to breathe (surprisingly one of the hardest things for a performer to do). She amazed me. At this point, I had completed drama school, multiple acting courses, and had taken part in hundreds of exercises with countless people whom I witnessed trying to just be in the moment. As artists we all go on about how we need to live in the moment and in the “now” but how many of us actually do it ? Here I was, sitting across from a woman I had never met experiencing the purest presence and truthfulness of just being. No games, no jokes, no fear. Just a human being existing in the moment with another. I felt deeply moved by her.

I would find ways to stall after class to be able to leave together with her. I would feel my stomach turn in excitement when everyone else had drifted off and it was just me and her and I was able to steal her full attention. We would walk down 8th avenue and get lost in talking about art and performance. We would sit at Panda Express and I’d be listening to her stories about performing and improv and feel joy, which I had been lacking recently. The almost two years I was living in New York had started to take its toll on me. I was burning out and extremely lonely. Those weekly classes and especially the conversations with her afterwards gave me energy and something to look forward to. I learned about how she had trained as a clown, was a huge fan of physical theatre and performance art, and how she was a part of the improv communities back in LA and in DC.

She loved to study humans - to see them and who they really were. She would make honest observations that came out of a place of curiosity and love. She didn’t push her own insecurities or perceptions on people, but she focused instead on just seeing them in their purest form, like a child. She was very generous, and she loved sharing her joy of watching others and celebrating them. She told me once that her clown (also known as one’s truest self) loves to observe and to watch. I thought that was a perfect reflection of her.

She introduced me to Amanda Palmer and The Art of Asking – something that has helped me break out of my fear of imposing and deeply rooted feelings of having to survive on my own. She encouraged me to take a clown class (something I had been wanting to do for years but was too afraid to) and she gave me the push I needed to start exploring my physicality and womanhood. Thanks to her I did all of these things and they shaped me immensely as a performer, artist, and a woman. Thanks to her I finally started creating my own work.

She became the heart of our class and by her example our group motto became I See You. She saw all of us and we began to see her, ourselves, and each other.

At our shows at the theatre, she would make moves and create scenes that would leave everybody stunned. People weren’t used to seeing experimental shows at the UCB Theatre which was known for a very specific brand of comedy. There is a scene people still talk about and refer to as “the chair scene”. She was silently pushing a chair that one of our classmates was sitting on, creating a specific trail like formation across the stage. They were both silent but there were tears in her eyes and we could hear her breathing heavily in the silent, tension filled theatre, as the weight of the chair was making it hard to push. Everybody was glued to her. Once they got to the other side of the stage, she turned to the audience, tears rolling down her face, and she asked them “why do I still feel so alone?”. The reaction of the packed UCB Chelsea audience was like a loud wave of everything from laughter to tears and it hit us standing at the back line, soaking us all from head to toe with raw emotions. Later during one of my scenes, she stepped on the stage and ordered me and everyone in the audience to close our eyes. Once we did so, she yelled through her tears "This is what it feels like to be alone every single day!". Again, the reaction from the audience was as if a whirlwind of emotions was hitting us from every side of the stage. It’s an experience that will live with me forever as proof of how theatre and live performance can truly unite and move people.

Her reputation grew and soon she was deservedly cast into one of the regular shows at the theatre where she would continue honing her craft while bringing laughter and joy to people. Her team Promises became one of the most successful and exciting teams at the theatre and it was clear she was a beloved teammate and a well rounded improviser who could do it all. From comedy to experimental theatre, there really were no restrictions to her talent and abilities. She loved what she did and she was crushing it.

In December 2018 was the last time I saw her outside of the hospital setting. She came to see a class show I was in at the theatre and she was, as usual, openly sharing everything she loved about it to me and others around us, making everybody feel validated, seen and celebrated. We spoke about finally collaborating on a project together, with live directing, and enjoyed each other’s ideas and visions. As I watched her sip on her club soda, I would have never guessed that she had had emergency surgery to remove a part of a brain tumor not even a week ago.

In the months to come, she endured more than I can even begin to imagine but she never showed any kind of self-pity or bitterness. She would literally pat herself on the back and say “you’re doing great baby girl, you’re doing great.” She was.

When I visited her after the first big operation, where the doctors had discovered that the tumor, first thought as benign, was stage 4 astrocytoma instead, I asked her about it and her answer was simple “It’s not good to look at the statistics, but instead, like in improvisation – there is no need to worry about what will happen next, you have to just live moment to moment.” This is how Stacy Junko Hayashi really lived her life. It’s un-fucking-believable and completely awe-inspiring. There is so much beauty in the temporary nature of things if we are willing to just stop the bullshit for a moment and notice it. Every time I spiral into some thought and every time I am clouded by my judgement of people - Stacy is always there to nudge me back to the 15 feet in front of my face. I see you baby girl.

to my dear friend,

Stacy Junko Hayashi

(May 17, 1984 - February 16, 2020)