Ylva and Kajsa I

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 an E-mail out of the blue from two young women from Sweden, who were coming to Japan and wanted some guidance into the world of noh.  I met them at the end of the month in Asakusa over a sushi meal.  They 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.  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.  In Mishima’s case, he doesn’t seem to understand her madness.

We spent the sushi dinner talking about folktales.  After I told them the basic plot of “Hagoromo,” in which an angel comes to earth to bathe in the ocean, and while she is unaware, a man takes her clothes.  The story is known nearly all over the wold as the swan maiden tale.  Ylva then told me a contrasting tale from Sweden.  There, in the deep forests, a beautiful young man sails the rivers in a small boat, with no clothes on, playing the violin so exquisitely, anyone who sees him draws near, slips and falls into the river, drowning.

Hagoromo in 2010

A recital performance at the Kongo Noh Theater in Kyoto.  My teacher, Udaka Michishige, is the chorus leader just below my fan.

A long time ago on Mio cape, near present day Shizuoka, a man of low birth is cursed with the bad karma from taking the lives of animals for a living.  He is a fisherman in this life, but his name indicates a more glorious past.  White Dragon.

In the ancient Chinese collection of stories, “Garden of Tales” from the 1st century BC, is a story an adviser tells the king as a warning not to take on the guise of one of his own subjects.  The adviser tells about a white dragon who turned himself into a fish and lived in a pond on earth until one day a fisherman shot him in the eye with an arrow.  The dragon flew away to the king of heaven to complain, but the king of heaven replied that fishermen shoot fish for a living and there was nothing he could do.

And so, it is said by some that the dragon died and was reborn, this time as the object of his hatred, the fisherman.  Of course, the fisherman has no knowledge of his past life as a dragon and lives in ignorance of a greater good, except for a strange affinity for natural beauty.   This is the point in the story from which the play “Hagoromo” begins.

My Corner of the Ethnosphere

Wade Davis from the National Geographic is an inspiration.  He says that humanity’s greatest legacy is the “ethnosphere,” the cultural counterpart to the biosphere and “the sum total of all thoughts, dreams, myths, ideas, inspiration, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.” An indicator that this richness of culture is dying out is the demise of languages, for “every language is an old-growth of the mind.” (see TED profile) This is very similar to what Goethe said about languages, “If you know one, you know none,” which can be applied as readily to culture.  However, Goethe’s quote also encourages the individual to explore a world that will challenge his or her unquestioned beliefs.

“Makura-Jido” at Horinji Temple

For those of you who have heard me talk about Noh and about Udaka-sensei, but have never quite understood what it was I was talking about – maybe you simply haven’t seen a Noh performance before – here is a You Tube recording that may show you some of the appeal. This video is of Udaka Michishige-sensei dancing “Makura-jido” at Horenji Temple in 2006 on September 9. I do not know who took it, and there are some shaky spots and a pillar that gets in the way of the view, but I am glad they did. I remember that morning getting a call from Sensei saying he was picking me up to go, but I was already at work and had been unable to get the day off. Seeing the video only makes me regret not having gone even more.

Watching the video, you can see the chorus sitting across from the camera. It was a pleasant surprise when I realized I knew all of them. On the left is Ono-sensei, a professor of environmental biology at Okayama University and student of Udaka-sensei, in the middle is Udaka Tatsushige-sensei, Udaka-sensei’s son, and on the right is Urushigaki-san also a student of Udaka-sensei. To the left are the musicians, and the performance is taking place facing a Buddhist altar inside a temple, which is a very rare setting. I haven’t had another opportunity to see a similar performance.

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.

Okina: Religion and Male Chauvinism in Noh

Okina performance by Udaka Michishige, March 10 at Itsukushima Shrine

Perhaps the most beautiful Noh stage in Japan is located in Hiroshima at Itsukushima Shrine. It is surrounded by water at high tide, drawing a natural division between the material world to which the audience belongs and the world of gods presented onstage. Only men may stand on this stage, and early in the morning on March 10, I saw a performance of Okina by Udaka Michishige-sensei.

Okina is the oldest Noh performance piece, more a set of dances than an actual play. It is a piece that women may not perform. The lead actors (shite) who dance Okina are said to become invested with the presence of a god, to literally become the embodiment of a god, during the performance. In preparation, the lead actor will do bekka (a period of ritual purification), during which they are not to eat from the same dishes as women, cannot eat food prepared by women, and are not supposed to communicate directly with women. According to the demanding schedule of an actor and the traditions of their school, actors will practice bekka for a week to a month or (at least in the past) a year in hopes of calling the gods into their performance. Udaka-sensei went through a similar practice for a week before his performance, or so he says since I didn’t see him in that time.

When I explained this all to my father, he commented on the male chauvinism of Noh performance. I had not allowed myself to think about Noh performance as exclusive of women, but wanted to think that the exclusion of women from the professional Noh stage was rather in performances related to particular religious institutions that did not allow women to perform Noh in front of the gods. Yet, although believing male chauvinism exists can also lead to reverse prejudices, this comment prompted me to question women’s role in Noh performance more directly.

Noh Maskmaking

My mask (on the right) and the model. To the left side of my work space are my tools and to the right are the templates.

I started Noh mask making class in the beginning of February. The mask I’m working on is based on a design by Tatsuemon, a famous mask maker of the Edo period. This was one of his three koomote, or young woman, masks, this one entitled, appropriately enough for me, “Yuki” (Snow).

On the first day, after work and grabbing an extra sweater at home, because I was tippling on the edge of catching a cold, I raced to northern Kyoto to make sure I would have enough time to accomplish something. First, Sensei showed me to a cushion placed before a small Buddhist altar at the edge of his stage and had me meditate to relax in preparation for handling the sharp tools and to prepare myself for working with the mask’s spirit hidden within the wood.

Hagoromo

My second Noh performance

On February 4, I had my second Noh performance. Sensei had rented the Noh stage at Iori, where I work, for a day of private recitals by his professional students – a sort of master’s class, in which Sensei gave feedback following each performance. I was invited to perform the kuse shimai of Hagoromo although I am far from being a professional.

Hatsubutai II – Yuki

Closing the fan at the end of the performance. The two people behind me were a part of the chorus, the person to the left is my teacher, Udaka Michishige.

On November 2nd, I went to Matsuyama in Shikoku for my Noh debut. One only gets one debut, and I wanted to make mine the best it could possibly be. However, after only a half year of lessons, there was a lot to pull together for a successful performance. All in all, though, the experience was amazing, including also meeting my Sensei’s students from across Japan, being allowed backstage during a full professional performance, and watching a new Noh play Sensei had written.