A heartbroken father spent six years and $500,000 in an international court battle to prove that his daughter’s Japanese guru, a master of the ‘dance of darkness,’ turned her into a sex slave, plied her with drugs and was responsible for her suicide.
Tibor Stern filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Katsura Kan, who was teaching Butoh, a form of dance in which students were told to ‘wallow in the darkness of their soul,’ at a college in Boulder, Colorado, according to the lawsuit.
Kan, whose real name is Terugoshi Kotoura and is believed to be aged 71, was found liable last month for the suicide of his student, Sharon Stern, by a Florida circuit court. A trial will take place in a few months to determine the damages.
Tibor Stern, 70, of Hollywood, Florida, described his victory as ‘bittersweet.’
‘I thought it would bring much more closure,’ he told DailyMailTV. ‘I had no doubt we were going to win; the evidence was overwhelming. But I didn’t jump for joy.’
‘Our daughter is not coming back. But hopefully our effort will save some lives. That was the whole idea.’
Katsura Kan did not respond to requests from DailyMailTV for comment.
Sharon Stern, whom her family affectionately called ‘Sharoni,’ was beautiful and talented, with a lifelong interest in dance and performance, Tibor said.
After graduating from the University of Miami in 2001, Sharon performed as an actress and comedienne, taught yoga and was an avid swing and blues dancer.
Sharon married Todd Siegel, a software engineer, in May 2007. The couple moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Sharon enrolled in the master of fine arts program at Naropa University.
That’s where Sharon encountered Katsura Kan, a Japanese citizen and guest artist who taught Butoh, the ‘dance of darkness.’
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