During 1975 and 1976 Dalby accompanied a number of the Pontocho geisha on some of their engagements in Kyoto, as they felt that Dalby's research would benefit from an insider's perspective. Dalby was fluent in Japanese and on occasion played the shamisen for guests, whilst wearing formal geisha attire.

However, despite the fact that Dalby has been referred to as the first ever western woman to become a geisha, in reality she was not a real geisha. She never went through the formal processes of becoming a geisha herself, nor was she formally associated with any of the okiya or ochaya in Kyoto. Her attendance at such parties for research purposes was only at the invitation of her geisha friends, and clients were not billed for her attendance as they would be for any real geisha who were present.

Dalby stated that she "wrote my Ph.D. thesis, and subsequent book Geisha on this topic, and became known as the world’s only non-Japanese geisha. And that’s how I was represented in the Japanese media: aoi-me no geisha, 'the blue-eyed geisha.'"[1]