International Exchange: Ylva and Kajsa I (revised)

Ylva, me, and Kajsa (in that order) on the Togetsukyo bridge in Arashiyama.  (Photo courtesy of Ylva Henrikson)

In the beginning of August, I got a surprise E-mail from two young women from Sweden, who were coming to Japan and wanting a guide into the world of noh.

I met them at the end of the month in Asakusa over a sushi meal.  Ylva and Kajsa are contemporary dance artists and were researching for a performance inspired by Mishima Yukio’s modernized version of the noh play Hanjo.  The story centers around a young woman, who has been left by her lover, who promised to come back after he finished some pressing business.  Waiting for him to return, she becomes distracted to the point of madness and wanders Japan looking for him.  In the noh play, she eventually meets him at a shrine in Kyoto.  In Mishima’s play, after spending every day in a train station in Tokyo, waiting for him to come, he comes to her home, but runs away when she doesn’t recognize him.

It seems to me in Mishima’s case that the young man doesn’t seem to understand the woman’s madness.  Is this perhaps indicative of something larger in our society?  Do we emphasize conformity so much that we cannot understand individual pain?

Orgy of Tolerance

(c)Frederik Heyman

In the 20th century, logic came to power.  That which was unnecessary was eliminated in Bauhaus, communist propaganda, American manufacturing, engineering, war, design. . .  Life was simplified to a minimum that could be logically understood.  Everything else was eliminated.  That is the world we still live in today.  Our scientific understanding abstracts from all emotion.  Subjectivity is set aside in search of a greater truth, but what is good for research is not necessarily good for life in general.  We lost our ability to understand ourselves.  We do not know how to deal with our desires except to satisfy them or to cry out in want and pain.  We abstract our emotions when sympathy is called for.  We are emotionally dead to violence when it is performed in the name of our own protection.  We are slaves to fear when violence draws near.  Hoping to escape from or at least deaden our fear and desires, we overcompensate with consumption.

Die Udaka-kai Europa Tournee: Dresden & Berlin

Im Schauspielhaus Dresden beim Vorlesen der Botschaften der Bürgermeister von Hiroshima und Nagasaki

Nach den im Vergleich gemütlichen Tagen in Paris, sind wir über Frankfurt nach Dresden geflogen für einen langen Abend mit Aufführungen von Han-Nô (nur der zweiten Akt) „Funabenkei“ und „Inori (Gebet)“ ein originelles Stück geschrieben von Meister UDAKA Michishige. Am nächsten Tag ging es am Morgen nach Berlin für Aufführungen von „Aoi-no-Ue“ am gleichen Abend und von „Inori“ am Abend darauf. Die Reaktion im deutschen Publikum war wie erwartet anders als die in Paris, aber was ich nicht gewusst und nicht erwartet habe war daß sogar innerhalb Deutschland die Reaktionen in Dresden und Berlin ganz unterschiedlich waren.

The Udaka-kai European Tour: Paris

Original Noh masks for the play Inori, written by Udaka Michishige

I just returned from an unreal world created in unreal time and space. From November 4 to November 15, I took time off from school to be with a group of actors, musicians, technicians, mask carvers, and general supporters in Paris, Dresden, and Berlin for a tour of Noh performances. In each city, Udaka Michishige made vengeful spirits and tormented souls appear on stage and helped them find enlightenment by telling their stories to the public. Even I got to join in the performance as a light-bringing angel in the original Noh play Inori.

The purpose of the trip was to perform Inori (Prayer), a play by Udaka Michishige about the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also about violence and terror throughout the world, to an international audience for the first time. Before our departure, Sensei went with Nakamura Yuko to Hiroshima to the Peace Memorial to inform the spirits there of the intentions for the tour. As they prayed in front of the arch, facing the A-Bomb Dome in the distance, Sensei closed his eyes and could see only a deep, dark red. Thinking this was strange, he turned his face in another direction and closed his eyes. The red color was gone. He turned back towards the Dome and saw the same oppressive red again. Was this the color of the sky during the atomic bombing? His eyes filled with tears, which he hastily wiped away before he turned around for a newspaper interview.