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Ailes Gilmour was among the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance Movement in the 1930's Her half-brother is Isamu Noguchi the American sculptor.

Ailes was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1912. Her mother, Leonie Gilmour was also the mother of Isamu Noguchi. Leonie was an American woman living in Japan working as an English teacher and writer.

Leonie Gilmour met Yone Noguchi in New York. He was a self-styled poet. When he returned to Japan, he made his living as a professor of English at Keio University in Tokyo. Yone invited Leonie to come to Japan with their baby. When Leonie got to Tokyo, she discovered that Yone already had children and another family there.

Ailes’ father was not Yone Noguchi. Ailes said in a biographical statement she gave for Marion Horosko's book about Martha Graham that her father was a Japanese poet. <ref>Horosko, Marian. Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training. University Press of Florida, 2002Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page).

Neither Ailes nor Isamu knew the name of Ailes' father. According to Masyo Duus in her biography of Isamu, a page in an old notebook which might have referred to Ailes' father was found by Ailes' son, Jody Spinden. However, the corner of the paper where a signature would be written had been torn off. <ref> Duus, Masayo. The Life of Isamu Noguchi: A Journey without Borders. Princeton University Press, 2004Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page).

Leonie choose her daughter's name from the poem Beauty's a Flower" by Moira O'Neill.

It is a striking coincidence that the words in that poem seemed to predict Ailes destiny as a dancer. Moira wrote, "Ailes was girl that stepped on two bare feet..." Indeed that was part of the modern dance technique.

Ailes grew up in a little Japanese style house that Leonie had built in Chigasaki, a seaside town near Yokohama. Isamu as a boy actually worked with the carpenter on its construction. Ailes was remembered by neighbors in Chigasaki as a happy child. She spend summer days playing in the garden, chasing butterflies and cicadas as children in Japan do.

In 1920 Leonie manages to return to San FRancisco with Ailes. Isamuis still in high school in LaPorte, Indiana. He is accepted into Columbia University's pre-med proram in 1922. Leonie and Ailes then go to live in New York City as well.